



Book 



(j)m§AwJ^Zl 



COPiRlGm DEPOSIT. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



BY 
JOHN CALVIN METCALF 

Professor of English Literature in the Universitj of Virginia 
Author of English Literature 




JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 



Copyright, 1914 
B. F. Johnson Publishing Company 



Copyright, 1921 
Johnson Publishing Company 



g)C!.A627787 
NOV 18 1921 



,^A5 



or- 



PREFACE 



In this work an attempt is made to present in a clear and 
systematic manner the main facts and tendencies in American 
literature from the beginnings to the present. Special emphasis 
has been given to movements and individual characteristics 
which seem distinctively American. We are beginning to 
reahze at last that American literature is not merely an off- 
shoot from English hterature, but that it is in a larger and truer 
sense a record of national traits and strivings for at least a cen- 
tury and a quarter. Even the Colonial and Revolutionary 
periods, in which no great hterature was produced, are exceed- 
ingly important as a background for the proper estimate of 
our later literature and should not be neglected by the serious 
student of American institutions. These earlier formative 
periods are also interesting in themselves for the lessons they 
teach of moral and pohtical aspiration: out of them have 
sprung the idealism that shines in the pages of American his- 
tory and that makes worthy our national hfe of to-day. No 
one can understand aright this noble heritage without some 
study of our seventeenth and eighteenth century literature, 
fragmentary as it is. This conviction will account for the 
extended treatment of those periods in this book and the 
nimaerous illustrative extracts from representative writers. 

After the first two periods it would be a difficult task indeed 
to classify our authors on a uniform national basis. They are 
all American, of course, but they flourished mainly in groups 
and by sections; when one attempts to consider them, it is 
the most natural thing in the world to arrange them geographi- 
cally according to their development; any other arrangement, 
it seems to the present writer, would be confusing. What the 
student has a right to demand in a textbook above everything 

[3] 



4 PREFACE 

else is clearness of presentation; and the history of literature 
in a big country like ours, where diversity of interest and tradi- 
tion only serves to give a spice of variety to our essential national 
unity, cannot be clearly and truthfully presented except along 
the lines of its natural growth. This is not sectionalism, but 
diversified Americanism. The contribution of New England, 
with its strong moral and didactic flavor; of the Middle States, 
with their more metropolitan tendencies; of the South, with 
its romantic sentiment; of the West, with its fresh and vigorous 
realism; — each of these contributions is set forth as a significant 
element in our national development. Perhaps the most strik- 
ing thing in our literary history is the picturesqueness of these 
several contributions, merging into a larger union of common 
interests. To lose sight of this characteristic of American litera- 
ture is to fail to apprehend its deeper meaning. 

The same general method of treatment is followed in this 
work as in the author's English Literature. Each chapter is 
introduced with a brief discussion of the historical, social, and 
literary movements which have been most conspicuous in the 
making of that period or that group. Here, as in the other 
volume, a special feature of the estimates of individual authors 
is a paragraph on the personality of each prominent writer, 
following the biographical sketch. Since literature is so largely 
a matter of personality, the stressing of this spiritual factor 
in the creation of artistic prose and poetry is desirable. But 
as far as possible the writings themselves must be read and 
enjoyed. It is assumed of course that a volume of representa- 
tive selections or separate editions of American classics will 
be used with this book. For those who wish to read more 
widely, special reference lists have been provided at the ends 
of the chapters. 

An effort has beeil made to present the history of American 
literature in a readable account free from the congestion of 
unimportant details. As far as the limits of the work have 
permitted, illustrative extracts have been introduced; especially 



PREFACE 5 

is tills true in the case of authors, as in the Colonial Period, 
whose works are not generally accessible. The main thing, 
after all, in a history of literature is such a vital approach to 
the writers through the setting, the statement of a few salient 
details in their lives and works, and certain suggestive com- 
ments, that the student will eagerly desire to make the further 
acquaintance of these literary heroes. If the author of this 
guidebook shall have succeeded in making his readers want 
to know at first hand what American poets, essayists, and 
story-tellers have done, he will not have labored in vain. 

Since this work first appeared many new writers have become 
sufficiently prominent to warrant their inclusion in a history 
of American hterature. This is particularly true in the fields 
of drama and poetry. An entirely new chapter has therefore 
been added, in which the record of these two kinds of literature 
is brought down to date. As will be noted, the chapter on 
western writers has been enlarged and in part recast, and 
certain minor changes made in the preceding chapter. A few 
needed corrections and insertions have been made elsewhere, 
but in the main the body of the book remains the same. 

University of Virginia. J. CM. 



SOME USEFUL BOOKS OF A GENERAL NATURE 

Literary History and Biography. — Richardson's History of Amer- 
ican Literature (Houghton); Wendell's Literary History of America 
(Scribner); Caims's History of American Literature (Oxford); 
Trent's History of American Literature (Appleton); Whitcomb's 
Chronological Outlines of American Literature (Macmillan); Boyn- 
ton's History of American Literature (Ginn); Bronson's American 
Literature (Heath); American Men of Letters Series (Houghton); 
Beacon Biographies (Merrill); Great Writers Series (Scribner); 
Apple ton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (6 vols.); National 
Cyclopedia of American Biography (2 vols.) ; Adams's Dictionary of 
American Authors; Stedman's Poets of America; Woodberry's 
America in Literature; Cambridge History of American Literature. 

Selections Covering the Field of American Literature. — Stedman 
& Hutchinson's Library of American Literature (11 vols.); Sted- 
man's American Anthology (Houghton); Carpenter's American 
Prose (Macmillan); Page's Chief American Poets (Houghton); 
Bronson's American Poems (Chicago University Press); Long's 
American Poems (American Book Co.); Simonds's American Song 
(Putnam); Stevenson's Poems of American History (Houghton); 
Knowles's Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics (Page); 
Bronson's American Prose (Chicago Univ. Press); Pattee's Century 
Readings in American Literature (Century Co.); Newcomer's Three 
Centuries of American Poetry and Prose (Scott, Foresman & Co.); 
Metcalf and Handy's Readings in American Literature (Johnson): 
Payne's American Literary Readings (Rand McNally); Foerster's 
Chief American Prose Writers (Houghton); Boynton's American 
Poetry (Scribner). 

A stimulating and suggestive little volume is C. Alphonso Smith's 
What Can Literature Do for Me? (Doubleday, Page). 

References for special periods will be found at the end of each of 
the chapters. 



[6] 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I CoLoxiAL Period 9 

Writers in Virginia - -— 19 

John Smith 19 

William Byrd --- 26 

Writers in Massachusetts 31 

Histories and Diaries - - - 31 

William Bradford- - 31 

John Wlnthrop - — 33 

Samuel Sewall -:-- 36 

Poetry - 39 

Theology and Ethics -- - 47 

Cotton Mather -- -- - - 51 

Jonathan Edwards- — - 55 

II Revglutioxary Period 62 

A Time of Transition -- -,- 62 

Revolution Literature - -— - 6Q 

Oratory - - - Q6 

The Political Essay - - 72 

Literature in the Middle States- - -- - - - 78 

Benjamin Franklin - 81 

Poetry 89 

Philip Freneau - - 90 

The Hartford Wits-- - - - -— 93 

Prose Fiction -- 97 

Charles Brockden Brown - 98 

III The New York or Knickerbocker Group 105 

Washington Irving- - - 107 

James Fenimore Cooper - - -- 119 

William Cullen Bryant- -- 130 

Minor Writers— - - - 138 

IV The New Exglakd Writers _ _. _ 146 

The Concord Group- - -- 157 

Ralph Waldo Emerson— -.. 157 

Henry David Thoreau — - 172 

Nathaniel Hawthorne - 178 

The Cambridge Group — 193 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 195 

James Russell Lowell — 205 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 217 

[7] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

The Historians and the Orators - 226 

The Historians--- 227 

Francis Parkman - 230 

The Orators - 234 

Daniel Webster 235 

John Greenleaf Whittier 239 

V The SouTHERisr Writers... 255 

Poetry --- - - - 260 

Edgar Allan Poe - 260 

Sidney Lanier 273 

Henry Timrod - - 283 

Paul Hamilton Hayne - — 289 

Abram Joseph Ryan — — - 294 

Later Poets- 299 

Oratory 304 

Prose Fiction— 308 

William Gilmore Simms— - 309 

George Washington Cable — - 318 

Joel Chandler Harris -. 322 

Mary Noailles Murf ree — 326 

James Lane Allen- - - 328 

Thomas Nelson Page— 331 

Later Writers- 335 

VI Writers of Eastern States... 343 

The Essayists. —A 346 

The Poets - — 350 

Walt Whitman- - 353 

The Novelists- - - - 365 

William Dean Howells- - 365 

VII Writers of Westerk States. _ 377 

Story-Writers and Poets- 378 

Bret Harte - „ 378 

Samuel Langhome Clemens- 386 

Indiana Writers - - .— .— 393 

James Whitcomb Riley — 393 

Other Western Authors - 399 

The Poets 403 

VIII C0NTEMP0R.A.RY Literature — Drasiatists and Poets 413 

The Drama - 414 

The New Poetry 424 

Index 437 

[8] 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



CHAPTER ONE 

COLONIAL PERIOD 

1607-1765 

Englishmen in America. — The first writers of what we now 
call American literature were Englishmen, temporarily or 
permanently dwelling in the newer western land. They 
recorded their adventures and observations for the informa- 
tion of those back in the home country, or for the interest 
and edification of themselves, their communities, and posterity. 
These men were not consciously producing literature. Much 
of what they wrote, indeed, has few of the qualities of pure 
literature; but on almost every page of their writings one may 
discover the redeeming traits of vigor and sincerity. 

Our earhest writers were primarily men of action: they were 
conquering the wilderness, founding colonies, and incidentally, 
as time and occasion permitted, jotting down their impres- 
sions. They were belated Ehzabethans following in the 
wake of restless explorers, planting the English flag, and 
bringing into the New World the pohtical, mental, and moral 
traditions of an old and famous race. In thought and action 
they were not essentially different from the men back in old 
England. We find, therefore, that the books which they 
wrote in a new land simply reflect the literary ideals of the old, 
more or less modified by pioneer conditions. And so the 
first American literature is mainly a continuation of contempo- 
rary English hterature. The first settlers read English books 
and naturally modeled their own works after them; indeed, 
for nearly two hundred years there were few American books 

[91 



10 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

to read. During most of this time, moreover, communication 
with the mother country was frequent and the affection for 
her was strong. 

English Historical Background. — The settlement of America 
began in a glorious period of English history, just when the 
splendors of the great Elizabethans were beginning to wane 
under the somber influence of Puritanism. The first English 
explorers had sailed west during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
(1558-1603). They felt the restless energy of that age of 
wonderful vitality; they had unbounded intellectual curiosity; 
they were full of admiration for their sovereign, who, with all 
her faults, strongly appealed to the popular imagination; 
they had invincible wills and a sturdy patriotism that made 
them dare to undertake seemingly impossible things. 

The nation was united, and this universal sense of nationality 
brought courage and hope and joy to the people. There was a 
feeling of security and prosperity: the troubles with France 
and Spain had been settled; political and religious plots against 
Elizabeth, which had long disturbed the peace of the nation, 
had come to naught; trade and commerce, domestic and 
foreign, flourished. Above all, the English fleet had in 1588 
gained a memorable victory over the dreaded Spanish Armada, 
an event which united all parties in jubilant thanksgiving. 
England had at last become a power of the first rank, and 
she naturally thought of colonizing other lands. Drake sailed 
around the world, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter 
Raleigh headed expeditions to the New World. Of all the men 
of this age, the one who seems to us to-day most representa- 
tive of its daring and its varied accompHshments is Sir Walter 
Raleigh, man of action, courtier, and scholar. 

The reign of EHzabeth's successor, James I, was not so 
happy. Indeed, compared with the great Queen, James was a 
failure; personally he was not popular and his policies were 
even less so; conceited, dogmatic, obstinate, and with strict 
views about the divine right of kings, he was soon in trouble. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 11 

He quarreled with Parliament, which resented his infringement 
on the right of freedom of speech, was unsuccessful in his 
foreign policies, and at last found himself in serious financial 
difficulties. The quarrel with Parfiament went on under his 
successor, Charles I, until it resulted in the beheading of that 
monarch in 1649 and the establishment of the Commonwealth 
under OHver Cromwell, following the Civil War between the 
Cavaliers, or Royalists, and the Puritans, or Republicans 
(reformers). Fleeing from the political and religious conflicts 
of these confused times, many EngHshmen emigrated to 
America and founded colonies there; a more detailed account 
of these will be given presently. 

The historical background, then, of our earliest American 
literature covers the EHzabethan Age, which marks the 
beginning of modern Enghsh history, the reigns of James I 
and Charles I, and the brief Commonwealth period, when 
Puritan influence under Cromwell was predominant. With the 
passing of the Commonwealth in 1660 came the Restoration, 
when Charles II, who had been in exile in France, mounted 
the throne of his ancestors; the CavaUers came back into their 
own and the nation experienced a violent reaction from the 
rigors of Puritanism; there was a plenty of "cakes and ale," 
and merry England gave herself freely to the joy of living. 
Meanwhile the colonies in the New World were growing apace. 
Throughout the next century the great social and political 
movements in England were reflected in our colonial literature . 

English Literary Background. — When Captain John Smith 
and his men were settling Jamestown in 1607, Shakespeare 
was writing the last of his great tragedies; when the Pilgrims 
were landing at Plymouth in 1620, Francis Bacon was finishing 
his essays and Ben Jonson was producing his comedies of 
"humours." The same year that Smith wrote his True Rela- 
tion (1608) saw the birth of John Milton; three years later the 
King James Version of the Bible was given to the world. Thus 
lir will be seen that the men who sailed westward in those early 



12 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

years of the seventeenth century came out of the golden days 
of English literature. In London the splendid Ehzabethan 
drama was just beginning to feel the first faint chill of autumn, 
after the long refulgent summer of the full-blooded playwrights 
and actors when the welkin was ringing with many voices. 
Plays and music and songs, the May-pole, the morris-dance, 
processions of boats on the ''silver-streaming Thames," gor- 
geous pageantry, dreams of fabled strands of gold, stories of 
marvelous adventures — all these gave youthful zest to life and 
furnished inspiration and material for the greatest outburst 
of dramatic activity the world has ever known. Along with 
this was the gift of song: lyrics of singular freshness and sweet- 
ness varied the almost monotonous making of plays, and 
England was indeed "a nest of singing birds." The prose of 
the day was touched with this imaginative quahty; the long, 
swinging, sonorous periods, not without a faint undertone of 
melancholy, are also pleasant to the sensitive ear. It was from 
such a literature as this that the earliest American writing is in 
a sense an offshoot. 

Then came the soberer literature of the Puritan period, 
when John Milton brought a sublimer note into poetry and 
John Bunyan a simpler cadence into prose. Paradise Lost 
and Pilgrim's Progress are the highest productions of literary 
Puritanism. At the same time the ''Cavalier Poets" were 
turning out their tuneful trifles, graceful little lyrics of love. 
The Restoration brought with it the French influence on 
English letters, and we find the satire in rhyming couplets and 
the more exact and pohshed prose of comedy. John Dryden, 
poet, essayist, and critic, was the great literary figure of the 
day. After Dryden came the perfecter of the satire, the 
master of the couplet, Alexander Pope, maker of brilliant 
epigrams. In this time of Queen Anne prose literature pre- 
vailed; the essay and the periodical became the popular form of 
expression in a highly social age; Joseph Addison and Richard 
Steele wrote for a widening circle in the Spectator and the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 13 

Taller. The most notable contribution of the eighteenth 
century, however, was the EngHsh novel, which was the begin- 
ning of a form of literature more democratic than any other 
known to the race. 

This brief sketch will serve to show how extensive and how- 
varied was the hterary background of our own colonial litera- 
ture. We shall see how closely related in form at least our 
earlier literature is to that in England; we shall see, too, how 
difference of subject matter and of environment in the New 
World gradually brought about a difference of tone and treat- 
ment in American writing; and finally, how American hterature 
comes slowly to have a distinctive character. 



Colonial Virginia. — The first permanent English settlement 
in America was made at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The 
London Company sent over three small ships containing one 
hundred and twenty men, more than one half of whom were 
of good family; the rest were, for the most part, a set of thrift- 
less adventurers. The purpose of their coming was mainly 
commercial, the hope of enrichment from the gold mines and 
the abundance of precious stones, which they supposed lay 
hidden under the virgin soil; incidentally, too, the love of 
adventure lured them, true EHzabethans that they were. 
Riches and romance were therefore the impelling motives of 
these first settlers. To this bold undertaking Michael Drayton, 
a popular poet of the day, addressed some inspiriting stanzas 
entitled "To the Virginian Voyage,'* several of which will serve 
to show with what roseate hopes the colonists set out on their 
perilous voyage: 

You brave heroic minds, 
Worthy your country's name, 
, That honour still pursue; 
Go and subdue I 



13' AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Whilst loitering hinds 
. Lurk here at home with shame. 



And cheerfully at sea, 
Success you still entice, 

To get the pearl and gold; 

And ours to hold 
Virginia, 
Earth's only Paradise. 

Where Nature hath in store 
Fowl, venison, and fish; 
^ And the fruitful soil, — 

Without your toil, 
Three harvests more, 
All greater than you wish. 

To whom the Golden Age 
Still Nature's laws doth give; 

Nor other cares attend,. 

But them to defend 

From winter's rage, 
That long there doth not live. 

On the banks of the James, named in honor of their king, 
these first Englishmen built rude huts, cleared the land, ex- 
plored the region, and dealt with the Indians as best they could. 
Beset by dangers, reduced by sickness, and discouraged by the 
hardships of pioneer life for which few of them were prepared, 
the colonists might have failed had it not been for the abiUty 
and the indomitable energy of their leaders, foremost among 
whom was the brave and gallant Captain John Smith. By 
1619, however, the colony had so far prospered that a; legisla- 
tive assembly of repnesentatives from the various plantations 
met with the governor's council; in 1624 Virginia became a 
royal province and so remained until the Revolution. 

About the middle of the seventeenth century shiploads of 
immigrants came to join the colonists, seeking refuge from the 
troubled political conditions at home, In England the king 



COLONIAL PERIOD 15 

was quarreling with Parliament, the Royalists and the Puritans 
were at war, and from the victorious followers of Cromwell 
the Cavaliers, sympathizers with the royal cause, fled in great 
numbers to Virginia. To them many of the most influential 
families in the political and social hfe of the Old Dominion have 
belonged by direct descent. These Cavahers brought with 
them across the sea the social ideals of rural England and 
adapted them to their new surroundings; out of these grew the 
plantation life of the older South, where agriculture was the 
prevailing form of livelihood. The farms were large, the roads 
were bad, the towns were few; each plantation accordingly 
became in time an independent social unit centering about 
the manor house of the owner, who lived as a feudal lord 
among his dusky dependants. His tobacco he sent in ship- 
loads to England in exchange for clothing stuffs and provisions; 
his sons, whose elementary training was at home under tutors, 
he might send to the English universities. 

Old Southern colonial life was pleasant and leisurely. It 
was a sheltered sort of existence tending toward a conservatism 
in which the growth of the individual outstripped that of the 
community. Public schools there were none, for general 
education was not encouraged by a society which was es- 
sentially aristocratic rather than democratic. Governor 
Berkeley wrote in 1671, over sixty years after the settlement 
of Jamestown, these remarkable words: 'T thank God there 
are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have 
these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and 
heresy and sects into the world, and printing has developed 
them." This sentiment was not fully representative, however, 
for by 1681 there was a printing press in Virginia and twelve 
years later William and Mary College was founded at Williams- 
burg. The indifference to popular education and culture, 
together with the isolation of plantation life, naturally made 
.against the writing of books; and so we find in colonial Virginia 
little literary activity. There was, however, a vital interest 



16 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in political discussion, and out of this developed a line of 
brilliant leaders and accomplished orators. 

Colonial Massachusetts. — The second permanent English 
settlement in America was made at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 
in 1620. The little Mayflower brought over about a hundred 
Pilgrims, who had set out under a grant from the London 
Company, it being agreed that the settlers should share with 
the company the profits of their toil. The men who landed 
at Plymouth belonged for the most part to the sturdy English 
middle class; a few of them were from the landed gentry of 
Lincolnshire and adjoining counties. They brought their 
famihes, and it was their firm resolve to make the new land 
their permanent home. Because of their religious beliefs 
they had suffered persecution in England, for they were Separa- 
tists, or extreme Puritans; they had fled to Holland, where 
they had hved ten or twelve years; now they were seeking an 
abiding place in the western wilderness with the intention of 
building up a reUgious commonwealth. During the next 
twenty years other Puritans came to join them, fleeing from the 
intolerance of the Royahsts and the partisans of the Established 
Church in their native land. The triumph of the Puritan 
cause, the aim of which was to ' 'purify" Church and State, 
made England temporarily a Commonwealth under Cromwell: 
there was consequently no further need for the Puritans to 
emigrate; it was now the CavaUers' turn to cross the sea. 

Thus it will be seen that the first colonists of New England 
were impelled by a religious motive. They were seeking 
neither gold nor adventure. Serious-minded men, they were 
followers of an inner fight, loyal to conscience, deeply devoted 
to principle. They had defiberately broken the old home 
ties and had set their faces fike flint against return. True to 
their vision, these spiritual ideafists, narrow and unromantic 
as compared with the fively Cavafiers, proceeded with grim 
determination to carve out a commonwealth. Many of them 
were well educated men trained in the University of Cambridge, 



COLONIAL PERIOD 17 

where there were numerous sympathizers with the reformers, 
and they brought to the New World the best educational ideals 
of their time. Along with their Bibles they read the more 
serious literature of that age. Some of these Puritan fathers 
even read the Ehzabethan romances, for we know that an 
ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne brought over with him a copy 
of Sir PhiHp Sidney's Arcadia. Indeed it is not always easy 
to draw a clear-cut line between the Puritan and the Cava- 
lier, and we may be certain that in the cultured New Eng- 
lander there was a blending of the characteristics of the two 
types. 

Believing as they did in books and education, the Mas- 
sachusetts colonists were not slow to furnish opportunities for 
enhghtenment to their communities. In 1639 a printing press, 
the first in America, was set up at Cambridge, named in honor 
of the famous English university town. Three years before, 
the Reverend John Harvard, a graduate of that same university, 
had bequeathed half of his estate and his hbrary of three 
hundred and twenty volumes to the new school established 
at Cambridge in 1636, which was henceforth to bear his name. 
In addition to Harvard College the colonists started many 
grammar schools, so that every boy might be prepared for 
college or at least have the benefit of an elementary training. 
Popular education thus became a fixed poUcy of the young 
commonwealth; so much importance in fact did the people of 
New England attach to this, that by 1650 pubhc instruction 
was compulsory in four of the five colonies. 

The social and civic centers of New England life were the 
church and the town meeting: rehgiously and politically the 
community was a democracy. This was a very different sort 
of existence from that in the South, where, as we have seen, 
the large plantation was itself a social group cut off from the 
rest. In New England the people lived close together, built 
towns, traded with each other, and so became independent 
of England commercially; they were not an agricultural folk 



18 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

like their Southern kinsmen. Moreover, the Northern colonist 
worked with his own hands, while the Southern planter was 
like a lord on his estate, exercising a general direction through 
his overseer who had immediate charge of the slaves. This 
tended, of course, to cause manual labor to be looked upon 
as degrading and to create sharp class distinctions. The 
compactness of the Northern community, the democratic 
atmosphere, the bracing climate, made it a thinking com- 
munity. Thus a current of fresh ideas was set going and 
literary production was stimulated. 

■ Colonial Literature. — Colonial literature in America naturally 
falls into two main divisions, made up respectively of the books 
written in Virginia and those written in Massachusetts. It is 
true that there were a few chroniclers in the Middle Colonies, 
of which Pennsylvania was most representative; it seems best, 
however, to defer the mention of their names until the next 
chapter, when the beginnings of Philadelphia's prominence as 
a literary center will be briefly considered. The Virginia 
writers dealt for the most part with adventure and explora- 
tion, while the Massachusetts writers concerned themselves 
with community history, theology, and serious verse. Upon 
the whole, early Virginia literature is romantic in tone, re- 
flecting more clearly the imaginative traits of the Elizabethans; 
early New England literature is religious and purposeful, 
showing the workings of the Puritan conscience. In general, 
it may be said that the literature of the Colonial Period in both 
sections is mainly prose narrative and exposition; only two 
poets have any claim to distinction, and they belong to the 
Northern colony. In Virginia the principal writers were Cap- 
tain John Smith, William Strachey, George Sandys, Robert 
Beverley, and Colonel William Byrd; in Massachusetts, Wil- 
liam Bradford, John Winthrop, Michael Wigglesworth, Anne 
Bradstreet, Samuel Sewall, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan 
Edwards. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



19 



I. WRITERS IN VIRGINIA 

JOHN SMITH (1579-1631) 

His Romantic Career. — Captain John Smith was born in Lincolnshire, 
at Willoughby, not far from the shores of the North Sea. As a boy he 
heard the "call of the wild," which lured so many Elizabethans away 




THE JOHN SMITH STATUE 
Jamestown Island 



from home, and was off to fight in the Netherlands. From France and 
the Low Countries he went' to Scotland, hoping to win the favor of the 
king, but failing in this^ he returned to WiUoughby, where for months he 



20 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

lived a lonely life in the forest like a banished knight. But he was too 
much a man of action to remain a hermit long, and so he went back to 
the continent and plunged into the strenuous life again. His adventures, 
told by himself, read like a book of romance: he fought in Hungary, was 
thrown into the Mediterranean by a hostile crew, was picked up by a 
pirate vessel, shared the booty won in an engagement on the sea, and at 
last reached Turkey; here he figured in fierce battles with the Turks 
and in tournaments "to delight the ladies," wherein he showed himself 
a gallant champion, slaying and beheading three Turks in succession. 
Finally captured, the doughty Englishman was sent as a slave to a high- 
born Turkish lady, on whom he made a favorable impression; the romance 
of the situation, however, was rudely interrupted by the lady's brother. 
After slaying him, Smith escaped to Russia, whence he returned to 
England in 1605. He was now only twenty-five or twenty-six years old, 
but he had won his spurs. 

A year and a half later Smith joined Newport's expedition to Virginia. 
He proved remarkably successful in dealing with the Indians, exploring 
the country, getting supplies for the little colony, and defending it 
against the savages. Energetic, fearless, daring, Captain John Smith 
did mote than any one else to save the colony from destruction, beset 
as it was on all sides by the dangers of the wilderness and disheartened 
by sickness and want'. He remained at Jamestown from 1607 to 1609, 
then returned to England; in 1614 he made a voyage of exploration along 
the coast of New England; the next year he led a colonizing expedition 
to that region, but was captured by French pirates and imprisoned. 
After his escape a little later, he went back to England where he lived 
quietly until his death in 1631. He had begun life as an apprentice to a 
merchant in Willoughby; as a soldier of fortune he had traveled and 
fought on the continent; most important of all, he had a main part in 
planting the first permanent English colony in the New World; but 
strangest of all, when you consider his life of action, his training, and 
his bluff and burly personality, he wrote books. Captain John Smith 
was a true Elizabethan. 

His Writings. — Smith wrote two books, or pamphlets, in 
Virginia: A True Relation of Such Occurrences of Note as hath 
Happened in Virginia and A Map of Virginia, with a Descrip- 
tion of the Country, the Commodities^ People, Government, and 
Religion. The True Relation was published in London in 
1608, and must therefore have been written in the midst of 
^e author*s busy colonizing. It is a booklet of about forty 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



21 



T R V E RE 

lation of fuch occur-^ 

rences and accidents of noateas 

hath hapned in Virginia fince.the firft 
plantingofthacColiony,wh?cFri5now 
rendcnt in the South part thefeofltill 
the lad recurne from 
thence. 
WrhtenbyCaftmeSmiih oveofthefatdCollony, U a 
7vt>rfhiffullkkr)do{his in England. 




£ O ^DO 2^ 
^TimtdfoTlohnTapfey and aretobeefolde attheGrcyj 
hound in Paulcs Church yard byff.fK. 
I 6 o ^ 

TITLE-PAGE OF JOHN SMITH'S TRUE RELATION 
The FijTst Book Written ia Ampxica 



22 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

pages on. the Indians, the country, the vicissitudes of the colony, 
and the adventures of the author. The style is what one 
would expect from an active pioneer, writing down at night by 
the flickering light of a torch the impressions and noteworthy 
events of the passing days and weeks — crudely irregular, but 
at the same time vigorous and picturesque. The True Relation 
is a readable pamphlet, such a news-letter as the people back 
home would like to get; it has life and energy, and these are 
literary merits, though its claim to a place in Uterature is of 
course mainly due to the fact that it is the first piece of writing 
done in America. A Map of Virginia is chiefly descriptive of 
the country — the climate, animals, plants, and inhabitants. 
Smith's account of Indian customs is particularly interesting, 
for he was a keen observer and a graphic narrator. 

After his return to England, Captain John Smith wrote a 
number of works, the most important being A Description of 
New England, New England's Trials, The General History of 
Virginia, and an autobiography. In the General History 
occurs the famous Pocahontas incident, which more than 
anything else has kept the author's name alive in the popular 
mind. As this rescue is not mentioned in Smith's earlier 
works, some historians are inclined to reject the romantic 
story as a later invention inspired by the appearance at the 
English court of Pocahontas after her marriage with Rolfe, 
when she had become a ^'social celebrity.'' The difficulty of 
proving this, however, is certainly as great as that involved in 
frankly accepting the story, probably even greater. For 
literary purposes it makes little difference whether it happened 
or not: the one thing thafc concerns us here is that the Poca- 
hontas episode is the first piece of genuine romance in American 
literature, and Captain John Smith is responsible for it. He 
lifted an Indian girl out of oblivion and threw around her the 
pleasing glamour of an abiding renown. She married an 
Englishman, visited her husband's country, was presented at 
court, and became the social wonder of the hour; in her pos- 



r 



COLONIAL PERIOD 23 

terity the blood of the red man and that of the pale face 
mingled. 

Smith's books, then, are not simply history, dry chronicles 
about the planting of a colony; they have here and there 
literary quahty as well, and their author was the first writer 
to brijig the indian into American literature as a romantic 
possibility. As he found more leisure for writing after his 
retirement from pioneer life, his later works, composed amid 
the peaceful scenes of England, show a marked improvement 
in style; now and then, indeed, we come across passages which 
have the melody of the best Elizabethan prose. These later 
works, however, do not properly belong to American literature ; 
only the two written in Virginia, lacking graces of style, but 
direct and virile, may be named as the first fruits of colonial 
authorship, the hasty productions of an explorer who was at 
the same time a capable organizer and a born leader of men. 

William Strachey. — The second name in order of time in the 
earliest colonial literature is William Strachey, for three years 
secretary of the Virginia colony. Strachey came over in 
1609 with Sir Thomas Gates whose fleet was driven in a storm 
on the Bermudas and wrecked. The survivors hastily con- 
structed new boats and finally reached Jamestown a year 
after they had set sail from England. Of this shipwreck and 
the succeeding struggles Strachey wrote an account in 1610 
entitled A True Repertory of the Wrack and Redemption of Sir 
Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Ber- 
mudas. This pamphlet is an exceedingly vivid narration of 
the storm and the experiences of the colonists on Gates's vessels. 
The main literary interest of Strachey's Httle book, aside from 
its value as the account by an eye-witness of a thrilling escape, 
lies in the possibility of its connection with Shakespeare's 
Tempest as a source of suggestion. The play is thought to have 
been written in 1611-'12, by which time Strachey's pamphlet 
must have had a wide circulation in England. It is not im- 
probable, therefore, that the great dramatist read and ap- 



24 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

propriated the incident of the wreck as a basis for his romantic 
comedy of Hfe in an enchanted island. This cannot of course 
be proved, but it is at any rate a matter of interesting specula- 
tion. As critics have pointed out, certain passages in A True 
Repertory suggest passages in the Tempest; the graphic picture 
of the storm at its height is not unlike that in the first scenes of 
the play. Strachey was a man of some literary culture, and his 
account of the terrible hardships of himself and his companions 
is one of the liveliest pieces of prose in our early literature. 

Poetry: Translation of Ovid; Bacon's Epitaph. — The earliest 
poetry written in Virginia was a translation of ten books of 
Ovid's Metamorphoses by George Sandys, treasurer of the 
colony from 1621 to 1625. Sandys was a man of learning and 
social prominence with excellent poetic gifts. After the 
exacting duties of each day, he found time to continue his labor 
of love in turning the lines of his favorite Roman poet into 
English verse. Before leaving England he had translated five 
books of Ovid, and at Jamestown he completed the work, as 
his friend Michael Drayton, the poet, had exhorted him to do: 

Let see what lines Virgi^iia will produce. 
Go on with Ovid . . . 
Entice the muses thither to repair; 
Entreat them gently; train them to that air: 
For they from hence may thither hap to fly. 

It is a good piece of work and belongs with other classic 
translations of the Elizabethans; later on, it was read and 
admired by Dryden and Pope, and for many generations it 
was the standard English version of Ovid. More important 
still, it is, in the words of Professor Tyler, ''the first utterance 
of the conscious hterary spirit articulated in America.^' That 
is an impressive picture which the imagination conjures up — 
George Sandys, the accompHshed Enghshman, working night 
after night, by the uncertain fight of a blazing pine-knot in his 
log cabin at Jamestown, on the elegant fables of the fastidious 



COLONIAL PERIOD 25 

Latin poet. Here, indeed, was a contrast which the translator 
himself was not slow to realize, for he speaks of his version as 
''bred in the new world, whereof it cannot but participate, 
especially having wars and tumults to bring it to light.'' 

There is one original poem of this early period by an unknown 
author which has considerable merit. It is an elegy on 
Nathaniel Bacon, the hero of Bacon's Rebellion, and is found at 
the end of the Burwell Papers, an anonymous manuscript on 
that patriotic uprising against Governor Berkeley and long in 
possession of the Burwell family of Virginia. The poem is 
headed "Bacon's Epitaph, made by his Man." A few lines 
will serve to show the stately eloquence of this first original 
poem in our literature: 

Death, why so cruel? What! no other way 

To manifest thy spleen, but thus to slay 

Our hopes of safety; liberty, our all 

Which, through thy tyranny, with him must fall 

To its late chaos? 

Virginia's foes 

To whom for secret crimes just vengeance owes 

Deserved plagues, dreading their just desert, 

Corrupted death by Paracelsan art 

Him to destroy; whose well-tried courage such 

Their heartless hearts, nor arms nor strength could touch. 

Who now must heal those wounds or stop that blood 
The heathen made, and drew into a flood? 
Who is't must plead our cause? nor trump nor drum 
Nor deputations; these, alas, are dumb 
' And cannot speak. Our arms, though ne'er so strong, 
Will want the aid of his commanding tongue. 
Which conquered more than Caesar. 

Beverley's History of Virginia. — The first native historian 
of the Virginia colony was Robert Beverley, clerk of the Council 
under Governor Andros. After being educated in England, he 
returned to Virginia to serve the government. In this service 
he had access to such records as would furnish accurate in- 



26 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



formation for a history of his native region, which he undertook 
partly for the purpose of correcting many glaring misstate- 
ments in an account of the colonies by an Englishman of the 
day. Beverley's book, The History and Present State of 
Virginia, was published in London in 1705, a second edition 
in 1722. The work contains, besides political history, much 
miscellaneous information on economic and social conditions, 
and is a readable and trustworthy record of the first century 
of the colony. The most interesting parts of the book to the 
modern reader are those which tell of the social customs and 
pastimes of colonial Virginia. Beverley writes in a clear, 
sprightly style, which gives a literary flavor to his descriptions. 



WILLIAM BYRD (1674-1744) 

His Varied Activities. — 

The most versatile and ac- 
complished man of colonial 
Virginia, according to all 
reports, was Colonel Wil- 
liam Byrd of Westover. 
He was born in Virginia, 
educated in England and 
on the continent, studied 
law in London, traveled 
extensively, and later be- 
came a member of the 
Royal Society of Great 
Britain. He returned to 
the family estate of West- 
over on the James River, 
and there, except for some 
years as agent of the col- 
ony in England, he spent the rest of his hfe. For more than 
a generation he was a member of the King's Council in Vir- 
ginia and for a time its president; he added to his ancestral 




WILLIAM BYRD 



COLONIAL PERIOD ^7 

estate, entertained in lavish style, took a prominent part in 
public matters, was a leader in the social and intellectual life 
of the colony, and collected a library of about four thousand 
volumes. Among the many soHd achievements of this versatile 
man may be mentioned his work as member of the commis- 
sion to determine the dividing line between Virginia and North 
Carolina, his practical interest in certain iron mines, his pro- 
motion of immigration to the colonies, and his founding of the 
city of Richmond. Colonel Byrd belonged to the colonial 
aristocracy, of which, both by his mental accomplishments and 
his social charm, he was an ornament; he seems, indeed, to 
have impressed his contemporaries as a typical Virginia gen- 
tleman, admired for his shrewd common sense, his humor, his 
public spirit, and his pleasing manners. 

His Writings. — It is evident from this enumeration of Colonel 
Byrd's varied activities that he was only incidentally a writer; 
perhaps no one would be more surprised than he, could he 
return and look into a history of American literature, to find 
his name high among the authors of the colonial period. He 
was a busy man of affairs who wrote for his own amusement 
and as a matter of record for his friends and country; he would 
hardly have thought it befitting a "gentleman" to write books 
for either money or fame. And yet he took pains to have his 
manuscripts carefully copied and bound into a volume to be 
preserved in his family. This manuscript volume was not 
published until 1841, ninety-seven years after his death. The 
three short works which entitle Byrd to be classed among the 
beginners of American Uterature are A History of the Dividing 
Line Run in the Year 1728, A Journey to the Land of Eden, 
A. D. 1733, and A Progress to the Mines. The most important 
of these is the first, which gives an exceedingly graphic account 
of the early North Carolinians, who afforded the writer endless 
occasion for humorous comment. The "dividing line'' was of 
course the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina; 
it ran through the Dismal Swamp, a vivid description of which 



28 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



occurs in the book, 
best: 



This extract shows Byrd's style at its 



Since the surveyors had enter'd the Dismal they had laid eyes on no 
living creature; neither bird nor beast, insect nor reptile came into view. 
Doubtless the eternal shade that broods over this mighty bog, and 
hinders the sunbeams from blessing the ground, makes it an uncomfort- 
able habitation for anything that has life. Not so much as a Zealand 
frog could endure so aguish a situation. It had one beauty, however 




WESTOVER 
Home of William Byrd on James River 

that delight'd the eye, though at the expense of the other senses: the 
moisture of the soil preserves a continual verdure, and makes every 
plant an evergreen, but at the same time the foul damps ascend without 
ceasing, corrupt the air and render it unfit for respiration. Not even a 
turkey buzzard will venture to fly over it, no more than the Italian 
vultures will over the filthy lake Avernus or the birds in the Holy Land 
over the salt sea where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood. 

In these sad circumstances the kindest thing we cou'd do for our 
8u£fering friends was to give them a place in the Litany. Our chaplain 



COLONIAL PERIOD 29 

for his part did his oflBce, and rubb'd us up with a seasonable sermon. 
This was quite a new thing to our brethren of North Carolina, who live 
in a climate where no clergyman can breathe, any more than spiders in 
Ireland. 

The Journey to the Land of Eden is an account of a visit to 
North Carolina, where Byrd had an estate; the ironical title 
of the pamphlet was inspired by the name of Governor Eden 
of that colony. The Progress to the Mines is especially interest- 
ing for the light it throws on the social customs of the Virginia 
aristocracy of the day; parts of it are as entertaining as a novel. 
A visit to the "castle'' of Colonel Spotswood, Governor of 
Virginia from 1710 to 1722 and founder of the so-called order 
of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, is described in a 
particularly readable entry in the journal: 

Here I arriv'd about 3 o'clock, and found only Mrs. Spotswood at 
home, who receiv'd her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. 
I was carry'd into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses, the largest 
of which came soon after to an odd misfortune. Amongst other favourite 
animals that cheer'd this lady's solitude, a brace of tame deer ran 
familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a 
stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a 
spring over the tea table that stood under it, and shatter'd the glass to 
pieces, and falling back upon the tea table, made a terrible fracas among 
the china. This exploit was so sudden, and accompany'd with such a 
noise, that it surpriz'd me, and perfectly frighten'd Mrs. Spotswood. 
But 'twas worth all the damage to shew the moderation and good humor 
with which she bore this disaster. In the evening the noble Colo, came 
home from his mines, who saluted me very civilly; and Mrs. Spotswood's 
sister. Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en Cavalier y was so kind 
too as to bid me welcome. We talkt over a legend of old storys, supp'd 
about 9, and then prattl'd with the ladys til 'twas time for a travellour 
to retire. 

The writings of William Byrd reveal decided literary ability, 
though they were hurriedly composed with apparently no 



30 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

intention of publication; their author was a man of wide 
cultivation, a keen observer, and more democratic in his sympa- 
thies than most men of his social class. In his common sense 
and himior and in the ease and directness of his style, he suggests 
Benjamin Frankhn; in charm and urbanity of expression he 
shows the influence of Addison, with whose works he was of 
course intimately familiar. In reading the journals of this 
eighteenth century Virginian, one is particularly struck with 
the modernness of his style; of all the men of his time, whose 
writings have been preserved, Byrd seems to the reader of to-day 
to have expressed himself with the greatest ease and natural- 
ness. 

Other Writers in the South. — Worthy of mention, but less noteworthy 
than those already discussed, are the following writers from Virginia 
and other Southern colonies: Thomas Whitaker, a Cambridge graduate, 
''the Apostle of Virginia" to the Indians, author of Good News from 
Virginia (1613); Henry Norwood, who wrote an interesting account of 
his perilous trip across the seas (1641) entitled A Voyage to Virginia; 
John Hammond, who wrote with enthusiasm and patriotic pride of 
Virginia and Maryland as two sisters. Leak and Rachel (1656); George 
Alsop, author of a jumble of droll prose and verse, full of satiric descrip- 
tions and broad jesting, A Character of the Province of Maryland (1666); 
Ebenezer Cook, who ridicules Maryland in a verse satire of the Hudibras 
order. The Sot-Weed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, in which he relates 
his experiences with tobacco agents ("sot-weed factors"); John Lawson, 
author of a readable History of Carolina (1714), which, like the other 
histories of the period, is a medley of narration and description, character- 
sketches and comments; Hugh Jones, a professor in William and Mary 
College, who wrote in 1724 The Present State of Virginia; James Biair, a 
cultured Scotchman and the first president of William and Mary College, 
whose sermons have a distinct literary quality; William Stith, another 
president of that institution, who published at Williamsburg in 1747 
The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia; and 
Patrick Tailefer, who, with the help of two colleagues, published in 
1740 A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia y a bitter 
arraignment of Governor Oglethorpe's management of the colony. 




COLONIAL PERIOD '31 

II. WRITERS IN MASSACHUSETTS 
1. Histories and Diaries 

WILLIAM BRADFORD (1588-1657) 

His Life and Character. — William Bradford, the second governor of 
Plymouth, came over in the Mayflower with the Pilgrims. He had been 
with them in Holland and had taken a prominent part in the delibera- 
tions which resulted in the settlement of the first New England colony. 
Born in Yorkshire of humble parentage, he had slender opportunities for a 
liberal education, but he did succeed in gaining some knowledge of the 
classics; late in life he even set himself the difficult task of learning 
Hebrew in order that he might read the original tongue of the Old 
Testament writers. Upon the death of Governor Carver, not long after 
the landing of the Pilgrims, Bradford was chosen his successor and 
served the colony for many years as its official head. He was a well 
poised, industrious, consecrated man, ruling the little Puritan common- 
wealth with firmness and fairness, inspiring confidence by his strong 
character, his practical sense, and his piety. He had come with a band 
of earnest folk to found a religious community, where justice, freedom of 
conscience, and devotion to spiritual ideals should prevail. Governor 
Bradford does not appeal to the romantic imagination as does the ad- 
venturous Captain John Smith, who some years before had founded 
Virginia and whose career suggests an Elizabethan romance; but the 
Puritan governor is nevertheless a striking figure there in the Massa- 
chusetts wilderness, and in his struggles, political and religious, he is 
the hero of a new Pilgrim's Progress. 

His Writings. — Bradford composed in whole or in part two 
works. The first of these, a Journal of the first thirteen 
months of the colony, is the joint labor of Wilham Bradford 
and Edward Winslow, briefly detaihng the trying experiences 
of the settlers during that time. Prefixed to the journal was 
a note signed ''G. Mourt," which for a long time caused the 
book, through a mistaken notion of its authorship, to be 
referred to as MourVs Relation. Far more important than this 
journal of Bradford and Winslow is Bradford's own larger 
work, the History of Plymouth Plantation^ written between 



32 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

1630 and 1646. Here is a good, straightforward piece of 
writing, conscientiously setting forth the history of the 
Plymouth colony. It is evident from his use of letters and 
official papers that the author wished to give an accurate 
account of the life and achievements of the people of Plymouth. 
The manuscript remained for many years in the Bradford 
family, finally coming into possession of the Prince Library 
in Boston; during the Revolution it disappeared, but was at 
last discovered (1855) in the library of the Bishop of London, 
who in 1897 returned it to the State of. Massachusetts. It is 
of course one of the most precious documents in American 
history. 

Bradford's work has few graces of style, but it has a simple 
dignity which commends it even to the modern reader, so 
evidently sincere was the writer in his desire to tell the truth. 
True Puritan that he was, Bradford often digressed to relate 
what seemed to him ''special providences" and to detail with 
the severity of a Hebrew prophet the evidences of Divine 
vengeance on the enemies of the Puritans, whether the Indians 
or the gay Cavahers back in England. Now and then the 
solemn elevation of style in certain passages in the History of 
Plymouth shows the influence upon the writer of that strong, 
simple, and musical Bible prose with which he was so familiar. 
Here, for instance, are two brief passages,^ the first on the 
departure of the Pilgrims from Leyden and the second on the 
landing at Plymouth : 

So they left that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their 
resting place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilgrims, and 
looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to the heavens, 
their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. 

Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they 
fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought 
them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the 



*The spelling in these passages has been modernized. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 33 

perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable 
earth, their proper element . , . And for the season it was winter, 
and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp 
and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel 
to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what 
could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts 
and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them they 
knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah, to 
view from this wilderness'a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for 
which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) 
they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. 
For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather- 
beaten face; and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, repre- 
sented a wild and savage hue. If they looked behind them, there was 
the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and 
gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world . . . What 
could now sustain them but the spirit of God and his grace? May not and 
ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: 'Our fathers were 
Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish 
in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord and he heard their 
voice, and looked on their adversity. Let them therefore praise the 
Lord, because he is good, and his mercies endure forever.' 

JOHN WINTHROP (1588-1649) 

His Life and Character. — John Winthrop was a man of greater social 
prominence and better educational training than his fellow governor, 
William Bradford of the Plymouth colony. Winthrop was born in 
SufTolk, spent two years at Trinity College, Cambridge, studied law, 
and before he came to America had already considerable reputation 
in his profession. He became leader of the company which settled 
Massachusetts Bay in 1630, and for the rest of his days he was governor 
of that large and flourishing colony. Early in life he had thought of 
becoming a minister, but finally turned to the law, though his strong 
moral nature and his sympathy with the Puritan cause made him a 
great religious leader as well as a wise executive. He was led by his 
conscience to cast in his lot with the Puritans; forgetting the things 
behind, he courageously and uncomplainingly went with his people into 
the wilderness and founded Massachusetts. Wmthrop's letters to his 
wife reveal a tenderness and beauty of sentiment which would do credit 
to the heart of the most devoted Cavalier; these letters go a long way, 
indeed, toward humanizing for us to-day tl.c character of the old Puritan 



34 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

governor, whom we are too apt to picture in our minds as a stern and 
forbidding personality, with eyes fixed on the other world to the neglect 
of the gentler domestic emotions. 

His Writings. — On the way over to his new home Winthrop 
wrote an essay, A Model of Christian Charity, which is a plea 
for unity of spirit and action on the part of the company 
bound for the New World. It is a little sermon on unselfish 
brotherly love. The chief work of Governor Wiiithrop, how- 
ever, is his Journal, which later came to have the more pre- 
tentious title. History of New England, begun in 1630 and 
continued until his death in 1649. This journal is a record of 
the civil, domestic, and religious happenings in the Massachu- 
setts Bay Colony during all those years; sometimes there is the 
baldest and briefest statement of events, without any scale of 
values. The death of a cow and a goat from eating too much 
Indian corn gets a notice of one line; the drowning of the 
governor's own son at Salem is chronicled with the same 
brevity. Divine judgments are seen by the devout governor 
in the sudden deaths of evildoers and in civil and domestic 
calamities; because of their neglect of religious duties, parents 
are bereft of their children; many instances of special providence 
are recorded. Throughout the volume there is a curious 
mingling of plain common sense and fanaticism, but it is 
often lighted up by a radiant ideahsm. The finest utterances 
in the History of New England are those on the true nature of 
liberty, under the year 1645, forming the report by Winthrop 
of his own speech before the General Court in defense of certain 
of his acts as deputy governor. 

Winthrop's style, though formally more exact, lacks the 
charm of Bradford's. One comes upon passages in the 
Plymouth governor's writings which have a melody like that 
of Bible prose, bringing the emotions home to the primal 
thines of life: Winthrop is drier, more philosophic, more 
logical, and on tne wnoie less appealing to the imagination. 
But why speak of style? The worthy governors were not 



COLONIAL PERIOD 35 

literary men, but conscientious historians of the beginnings 
of reUgious commonwealths. It is almost impertinent to 
mention graces of style in connection with the work of pioneers 
in times that tried men's souls. The wonder of it is that 
such busy men in such days could have found the time and 
energy to make extensive records of the social, political, and 
religious activities of their communities. 

Morton and Merry Mount. — By way of contrast to the 
serious manners of the Puritans, brief mention may be made of 
Thomas Morton, the Cavalier settler of Merry Mount not 
far from Plymouth. Morton was a London lawyer who 
with a lively band of jolly fellows established a plantation and 
trading-post at Merry Mount (Mount Wollaston); here they 
set up a May-pole and made merry as they were wont to do in 
good old England, dancing and singing around the pole with 
the Indians. It seems, too, that the Enghshmen sold rum 
and firearms to the Indians and traded with them to the hurt 
of the Plymouth colony. What gave mortal offense to the 
Puritans, however, was the noisy mirth at Merry Mount; 
Morton and his hilarious crew were arrested and he was twice 
transported to England for trial, only to return to live else- 
where in New England, for under English law his offense was 
not punishable. While in England Morton wrote the New 
English Canaan, satirizing the Puritans, praising the Indians, 
and extoUing in glowing terms the natural beauties and re- 
sources of New England. He was an irresponsible, jesting 
Cavaher, not so bad as his enemies made him out, and his 
book, though carelessly written, is interesting because it gives 
a touch of color to an otherwise somber background. Morton 
and his men have been preserved for us in hterature through 
Hawthorne's attractive little story, 'The May-Pole of Merry 
Mount," which should be read by all who would under- 
stand the setting and spirit of this episode in New England 
history. 



36 



AMERICAN LITERATUKE 




SAMUEL SEWALL 



SAMUEL SEWALL (1652-1730) 



Judge and Man of Aflfairs. — Although the grandparents of 
Samuel Sewall were early immigrants to Massachusetts, he 
was born in England whither his parents had gone on a visit. 
He graduated at Harvard in 1671 and then proceeded to study 
for the ministry, but gave up this profession, after a short 
period of service, to become a business man. By the time 
SewaU was forty he had become a prominent figure in the 
political life of the colony, and as a judge of the probate court 
he took a leading part in the witchcraft trials at Salem. Later 
on, having become convinced of his mistake in persecuting the 
poor wretches, he had the courage to make a public confession 
of his error. In doing this he lost for a time at least the friend- 
ship of the Mathers who persisted in maintaining their original 
opinions about the witches. Throughout his long Hfe Sewall 



i| 



COLONIAL PERIOD 37 

showed an active interest in the affairs of the community; he 
served the church and commonwealth as member of committees, 
of the council, and as chief justice. He was well informed on 
the educational progress of the time and on the literature 
brought from the mother country, for as an alumnus of Harvard 
he felt an intelligent concern for the young college, of which 
he was for a while the librarian. Of all this his famous Diary 
is an enduring evidence. 

The Diary. — The one work which entitles Judge Sewall to 
lasting remembrance is his voluminous Diary covering a period 
of fifty-six years (1673-1729). Ordinarily, diaries are dreary 
reading and only two or three in our language deserve to rank 
as Hterature. In English literature the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 
that gossipy old navy clerk of the seventeenth century, has 
long been a classic. An interesting personality, varied experi- 
ence, and capacity for minute observation are essential to 
the making of a readable diary. These qualities belonged also 
to Samuel Sewall, of Massachusetts, who has left us in his 
Diary an intimate personal record as well as a detailed picture 
of colonial life. It is the only diary of the period — and there 
were many — which one reads to-day with pleasure. All sorts 
of trivial personal entries are found: a neighbor has his hair 
cut, a schoolboy is whipped, a good dinner is eaten, boys are 
admonished not to play ^'idle tricks'' on April-fools' day, Mrs. 
Winthrop is presented with half a pound of sugar almonds. 
Serious matters of Church and State are also set forth with 
becoming solemnity. 

The most entertaining part of the Diary, however, is that 
dealing with Judge Sewall's long courtship of Mrs. Catherine 
Winthrop. Both had been twice married and had reared 
families. To the winsome widow her suitor sends or takes 
sermons, gingerbread, cakes, drinks healths, and talks sweetly 
and practically; but the wooing is in vain; the obdurate lady 
says no; and the judge decides to take it philosophically. Here 
are two or three extracts : 



38 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

October 24, 1720. — I went in the hackney coach through the Common; 
stopped at Madam Winthrop's . . . Sarah came to the door with 
Katie in her arms; but I did not think to take notice of the child. Called 
her Mistress. I told her, being encouraged by David Jeffries' loving 
eyes and sweet words, I was come to enquire whether she could find in 
her heart to leave that house and neighbourhood and dwell with me at 
the South-end; I think she said softly. Not yet. I told her it did not lie 
in my lands to keep a coach. If I should, I should be in danger to be 
brought to keep company with her Neighbour Brooker (he was a little 
before sent to prison for Debt). Told her I had an antipathy to those 
who would pretend to give themselves, but nothing of their Estate. I 
would a proportion of my Estate with myself. And I suppose she would 
do so. She commended the book I gave her. Dr. Preston, the Church 
Marriage ... I said the Time and Tide did circumscribe my visit. 
She gave me a Dram of Black-Cherry Brandy, and gave me a lump of 
the sugar that was in it. She wished me a good Journey. I prayed 
God to keep her, and came away. Had a very pleasant journey to 
Salem. 

Monday, November 7. — My son prayed in the Old Chamber. Our 
time had been taken up by Son and Daughter Cooper's Visit; so that I 
only read the 130th and 143rd Psalm. 'Twas on the Account of my 
Courtship. I went to Mad. Winthrop; found her rocking her little Katie 
in the Cradle. I excused my coming so late (near Eight). She set me 
an arm'd Chair and Cushion; and so the Cradle was between her arm'd 
Chair and mine. Gave her the remnant of my Almonds; she did not eat 
of them as before; but laid them away; I said I came to enquire whether 
she had altered her mind since Friday, or remained of the same mind 
still. She said, Thereabouts. I told her I loved her, and was so fond as 
to think she loved me: She said she had a great respect for me . . . 
The Fire was come to one short Brand besides the Block, which Brand 
was set up on end; at last it fell to pieces, and no Recruit was made. 
She gave me a Glass of Wine. I think I repeated again I would go home 
and bewail my Rashness in making more Haste than good Speed. I 
would endeavour to contain myself, and not go on to solicit her to do 
that which she could not consent to. Took leave of her. As I came 
down the steps she bid me have a Care. Treated me Courteously. Told 
her she had entered the 4th year of her Widowhood . . . Her dress 
was not so clean as sometime it had been. Jehovah jireh! 

Wednesday, November 9. — Dine at Bro. Stoddard's: were so kind as 
to enquire of me if they should invite Madam Winthrop; I answered 
No. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 39 

2. Poetry 

The Puritans cared little for poetry; life was too serious a 
business to be wasted in courting the muses; besides, men were 
giving all their energy to conquering the wilderness and regulat- 
ing their communities. Even in Old England Puritanism had 
produced little literature; leave out Milton and Bunyan, and 
you hunt in vain for poets and almost in vain for prose writers 
of distinction. The Bible, the one book that the Puritans knew 
intimately, contains much poetry of the highest order, but the 
New England fathers were too much interested in the letter of 
Scripture to catch its poetic spirit; they did not conceive of the 
Bible as great literature as well as a great spiritual guidebook; 
indeed, the literary value of the Bible is essentially a modern 
discovery. Such scattered verse as we find in early colonial 
literature very largely consists of epitaphs, elegies, memorials, 
and crude attempts to put the Psalms into singable meter, 
resulting in performances both lugubrious and wooden and not 
without an element of the grotesque. 

The most noteworthy collection of verse is the Bay Psalm 
Book, a metrical version of the Psalms by several Massachusetts 
ministers whose expressed purpose was to make a literal 
rendering. They seemed to feel that verse was a sort of neces- 
sary evil as a vehicle of religious truth, and they made the 
translation as Hteral as possible so as not to offend the con- 
sciences of those that wished to ''sing in Sion the Lord's songs 
of prayse according to his own wille." It required consider- 
able argument, indeed, from one of their leading ministers to 
convince some of the more conscientious members of the 
churches that there was Scriptural authority for singing Psalms 
in meeting. The Bay Psalm Book, aside from the fact that 
it is a literary curiosity, is worth remembering as the first 
book printed in America; it was issued in 1640 from the Cam- 
bridge press set up the year before. The following verses 
from this collection prove how faithful the translators were 



40 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

to their assertion in the preface that ''God's altar needs not our 
polishings": 

Blessed man, that in th' advice 

of wicked doeth not walk; 
nor stand in sinners way, nor sit 

in chayre of scornfull folk. 
But in the law of Jehovah, 

is his longing delight: 
and in his law doth meditate, 

by day and eke by night. 

From Psalm I. 

Through all the earth their line 

is gone forth, and unto 
the utmost end of all the world, 

their speaches reach also: 
A Tabernacle hee 

in them pitched for the Sun, 
Who Bridegroom like from's chamber goes 

glad Giants-race to run. 
From heavens utmost end, 

his course and compassing; 
to ends of it, and from the heat 

thereof is hid nothing. 

From Psalm XIX. 

A comparison of these Hnes with the sonorous music of tne 
King James version will make it clear that the worthy divines 
of Massachusetts had little sense for ''harmonious numbers." 
The casual reader of to-day finds far more entertainment, 
however, in some of the memorial verses of that timt. than in 
the Bay Psalm Book. In England it was the day of 'fantastic" 
verse, whether grave or gay, and several of the New England 
clergy tried their hands at epitaphs and elegies, with results 
which were no doubt serious enough to the Puritan fathers 
but which, in a few cases at least, strike the modern reader as 
little short of ridiculous. Here, for instance, are ten hnes from 
an elegy on the Reverend John Cotton : 



COLONIAL PERIOD 41 

A living, breathing Bible; tables where 
Both covenants at large engraven were; 
Gospel and law in's heart had each its column; 
His head an index to the sacred volume; 
His very name a title-page; and next 
His life a commentary on the text. 
O, what a monument of glorious worth, 
When, in a new edition, he comes forth, 
Without erratas, may we think he'll be 
In leaves and covers of eternity! 

The epitaph of Reverend Jonathan Mitchell of Cambridge, 
reads thus: 

Here lies the darling of his time, 

Mitchell expired in his prime; 

Was four years short of forty-seven, 

Was found full ripe and plucked for heaven. 

Another clergyman, Samuel Stone, had his name played 
upon after death in the following tribute by a brother minister : 

A stone more than the Ebenezer famed; 
Stone resplendent diamond, right orient named; 
A cordial stone, that often cheered hearts 
With pleasant wit, with Gospel rich imparts; 
Whetstone that edgified th' obtusest mind; 
Loadstone, that drew the iron heart unkind. 
A pond'rous stone, that would the bottom sound 
Of Scripture depths, and bring out Arcan's ^ found. 

But in this time of fantastic rhyming and conceit-making, 
when '^mortuary verses,'^ as Lowell calls them, flourished hke 
the leaves of the funeral cypress, there were two writers of 
verse who merit a special consideration, Anne Bradstreet and 
Michael Wigglesworth. 

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672).— The jfirst writer in American 
literature to deserve in any true sense the name of poet was 

^Secret treasures. 



42 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Anne Bradstreet, daughter of one governor of Massachusetts 
and wife of another. She was born in England; later, her 
father, Thomas Dudley, became the head of the Puritan 
commonwealth; at the age of sixteen she married Simon Brad- 
street, afterwards governor. Mrs. Bradstreet spent most of 
her life near Andover; she was the mother of eight children; 
her household and general social duties were heavy and she 
suffered from ill-health; still, she found time to read far more 
than most women of the time and, what is still more remarkable, 
to compose a large amount of verse. She was familiar with the 
works of the French poet Du Bartas, the verses of the Enghsh 
poet Quarles, the writings of Sir Philip Sidney, and apparently 
with those of Edmund Spenser. Though born four years 
before Shakespeare died, it cannot be proved, as some critics 
have sought to do, that she read the plays of the great dramatist. 
Mrs. Bradstreet was a refined and intelligent woman whose 
devout Puritanism did not prevent her attainment of a generous 
literary culture. 

The works of this early New England poetess were published 
in 1650 in London, whither the manuscript had been taken by 
her brother-in-law, the Reverend John Woodbridge, without 
the consent of the author. She was therefore in no wise 
responsible for the exalted title on this first edition of her 
poems — The Tenth Muse lately Sprung up in America. Her 
own countrymen evidently hked the title, and among her 
admirers Mrs. Bradstreet was proudly hailed as 'The Tenth 
Muse." Fulsome words of praise were spoken by such leading 
men of the colony as Cotton Mather, who called her verses 
*'a monument to her memory beyond the stateliest marbles"; 
and by President Rogers, of Harvard, who declared himself 
"sunk in a sea of bliss" and ' 'weltering in dehght" while reading 
them. Posterity has failed to share the enthusiasm of these 
loyal gentlemen, and the verses of the 'Tenth Muse" long 
ago fell into neglect; the labored figurative speech, the strain- 
ing after ''conceits," and the morahzings of Mrs. Bradstreet's 



COLONIAL PERIOD 43 

more ambitious efforts, which greatly edified the Puritan 
conscience, have no charm for us moderns. The main body of 
her verse consists of five poems: * The Four Elements,'^ 'The 
Four Humours in Man's Constitution," *The Four Ages of 
Man/' 'The Four Seasons of the Year/' and 'The Four 
Monarchies." The last of these ''quaternions/' as they have 
been mathematically designated, is a metrical paraphrase of 
Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World. 

When we leave this dreary didactic verse and turn to Mrs. 
Bradstreet's later poems of a more personal and local nature, 
we are rewarded. The best of these is "Contemplations/' 
certain stanzas of which show real feeling and a fresh apprecia- 
tion of country sights and sounds. Here we may discover the 
faint beginnings of American nature poetry, wherein are re- 
flected the glories of the wildwoods, the gayety of flowers, and 
the music of birds' songs. One heartily wishes that Anne 
Bradstreet, talented as she undoubtedly was, had left her 
moralizing and "grave dignity" to the less gifted and had 
contented herself with making more stanzas hke these: 

Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm 

Close sate I by a goodly River's side, 

Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm; 

A lonely place, with pleasures dignified. 

I once that loved the shady woods so well, 

Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, 

And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell. 



While musing thus with contemplation fed. 

And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, 

The sweet-tongued Philomel ^ percht o'er my head, 

And chanted forth a most melodious strain, 

Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, 

I judged my hearing better than my sight. 

And wished me wings with her a while to take my flight. 

The dawning morn with songs thou dost prevent, ^ 



^Nightingale. ^Anticipate, 



44 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Sets hundred notes unto thy feathered crew, 

So each one tunes his pretty instrument, 

And warbling out the old, begin anew; 

And thus they pass their youth in summer season, 

Then follow thee into a better region, 

Where winter's never felt by that sweet airy legion. 

Aside from any direct debt to Mrs. Bradstreet for even the 
best of her verses, Americans of to-day feel an interest in her 
because of her Hneal descendants, Richard Henry Dana, 
Wendell Phillips, William Ellery Channing, and Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. 

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705). — More strictly typical 
of New England Puritanism was the Reverend Michael Wiggles- 
worth, minister of the church at Maiden, Massachusetts, for 
fifty years. He was bom in England, came to America when a 
child, graduated at Harvard, where he was for a time a tutor, 
studied medicine as well as divinity, and so cared for the 
bodies and the souls of his parishioners. In spite of his ex- 
ceedingly forbidding theological utterances he appears to have 
been a gentle, kind-hearted man abounding in good works 
among his neighbors. Cotton Mather describes him as "a 
little, feeble shadow of a man"; he suffered much from ill- 
health, from which he sought relief by writing some of the 
most cheerless verse in American literature. 

Wigglesworth's masterpiece is a poem of over two hundred 
lines, The Day of Doom, or a Poetical Description of the Great 
and Last Judgment. It is in eight-line stanzas of four and 
three beats, a jigging sort of ballad meter which appealed to 
the popular mind, though it must be confessed it is in strange 
contrast to the gravity of the subject. Still, it was easy to 
memorize, and as the poem expressed in portable form the gist 
of the theology of the day, children learned The Day of Doom 
by heart along with their catechisms. Nearly every household 
in New England owned a volume of Wigglesworth, and it 
is safe to say that no other versifier of the seventeenth century 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



45 



%\)t Dtiv of 3)oomf 

O R, A 

DESCRIPTION 

Of the Great and Laft 

Judgment. 

WITH ^ 

A SHORT DiSCOuf SE 

E T E RN I T Y- 



Bcclef. 12, 14. 

Por Godpjall irin^ ever] -jr^jri^ into JuJgrjiem ^ 
yiith sveryfecrct things whether it h good ^ 
cr whether irhe evil. 



LONDON, 

Printed by WO for John SimsyZX the Kinj^s^ 
Hea^zt Suveetings-AUej-end in C^nhill^ 
next Houfetothe Eo]ai'£xcbange^ 1^71* 



TITLE-PAGE OF WIGGLESWORTH'S DAY OF DOOM 
From copy of First Edition in New York Public Library 



46 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

was so widely and devoutly read. '*It was the solace of 
every fireside," says Lowell, ''the flicker of the pine-knots by 
which it was conned perhaps adding a Hvelier relish to its 
premonitions of eternal combustion." 

The Day of Doom presents a reaUstic picture of the last 
Judgment: the trumpet sounds and the Hving and the dead 
appear before the awful Judge of all the earth; the righteous 
are assigned a place near the Judge, while the wdcked from their 
station on the left hand are allowed to plead for themselves; 
the heathen who had no opportunity to accept the teachings 
of the Bible, and a multitude of infants who died at birth 
present their pleas for exemption from pimishment, but in 
vain; the Judge pronounces doom, and the poem ends with an 
account of the pains of hell and the joys of heaven. The 
most famous stanzas are those in which the "reprobate infants" 
make their plea and receive in response a slightly modified 
sentence : 

O great Creator why was our nature 

depraved and forlorn? 
Why so defiled and made so vild, 

whilst we were yet unborn? 
If it be just, and needs we must 

transgressors reckoned be, 
Thy Mercy, Lord, to us afford, 

which sinners hath set free. 



You sinners are, and such a share 

as sinners, may expect; 
Such you shall have, for I do save 

none but mine own Elect. 
Yet to compare your sin with their 

who lived a longer time, 
I do confess yours is much less, 

though every sin's a crime. 

A crime it is, therefore in bliss 
you may not hope to dwell; 

3ut unto you I shall allow 
the easiest room in Hell, 



COLONIAL PERIOD 47 

The glorious King, thus answering, 

they cease, and plead no longer; 
Their Consciences must needs confess 

his reasons are the stronger. 

Marginal citations from Scripture accompany most of the 
stanzas, so careful was the author to give an authoritative 
background to this remarkable production. It is worth 
noting, however, as Professor Cairns remarks^, that the * 'easiest 
room" concession is not supported by Scriptural reference, 
''the one expression of the author's better self against the 
logic of his creed.'' 

3. Theology and Ethics 

The New England Clergy. — The preachers were the leaders 
of thought in early colonial New England. The meeting- 
house was the center of social and religious activity, uniting 
within itself and the minister the functions of modern clubs, 
lectures, and newspapers. The minister in a Puritan common- 
wealth of the seventeenth century exercised this supreme 
power not simply because the government was virtually a 
theocracy, but also because he was usually a man of intellectual 
abiHty, strong personality, devout life, and great learning. 
The New England divines were giants. They gave themselves 
to their tasks of spiritual and temporal leadership with im- 
mense seriousness, and they ruled their communities with the 
sanctified authority of anointed kings. No such consecrated 
priesthood in a Protestant commonwealth has elsewhere 
flourished as that which dominated the thought of Massachu- 
setts for a hundred years after the landing of the Pilgrims. 
The sermons they preached, while not interesting to this genera- 
tion, are marvels of mental energy and sustained logical reason- 
ing, to say nothing of the physical endurance which the making 
of them must have cost. And there was doubtless some 

iCaims : History of American Literature, p. 53. 



48 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

physical wear and tear on the hearer as well: sermons were 
from two to three hours long, highly doctrinal, rhetorical, 
ponderous, and elaborated sometimes beyond ''twenty-fifthly"; 
through sheer weariness old people would fall asleep, only to 
be aroused by the sheriff, who also saw to it that the young 
people smiled not too broadly. The prayers were long, an 
instance, presumably not uncommon, being recorded by a 
certain Harvard student: ''Mr. Torry stood up and prayed 
near two hours, but the time obhged him to close, to our regret." 

Out of all this religious activity grew a great mass of writing, 
much of it purely theological; such questions as future punish- 
ment, election, total depravity, were debated mth a zeal which 
to our times seems little short of fanatical. It was a very 
intellectual performance indeed, but it meant a blight on the 
fancy and a paralysis of the emotions. Life tended under such 
conditions to become hard and dry. Properly speaking, little 
of this large body of desiccated divinity is literature, but 
because it reflects so clearly the temper of Puritan New England 
in that oldeh time and because the somber sermonizing is here 
and there relieved by touches of beauty and outbursts of 
imaginative splendor, the literary historian must needs take 
account of it. Old England had her Jeremy Taylor and 
Thomas Fuller in the same century that New England had her 
Wilhams and her Mathers; the latter are not so notable for 
those qualities of style that make great literature as their 
brethren of the home land; and yet these pioneer theologians of 
Massachusetts Bay kindled moral fires which are still burning 
in their descendants, and their worker deserve to be classed 
among the great spiritual forces that have helped to make our 
national life and literature. From a Icng list of writers on 
theological and ethical themes four may be considered as 
representative — Roger Williams, Nathaniel Ward, Cotton 
Mather, and Jonathan Edwards. 

Roger Williams (1607-1684).— Roger Wilhams, friend of the 
Indians and champion of religious toleration, deserves mention 



COLONIAL PERIOD 49 

here more because of his personahty and hberal teachings than 
from any striking hterary quahty in his writings. Born in 
Wales, educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, with the 
intention of being a clergyman in the Established Church, he 
turned non-conformist and in 1631 came to Massachusetts 
to cast in his lot with the Puritans. For a time he w^as pastor 
of the church at Salem, but his preaching proved too radical 
for the orthodox, and he was according!}^ branded as a heretic 
and banished from the commonwealth. He sought the protec- 
tion of his friends, the Indians, toward whom he had advocated 
fairer dealing by the colonists, and in 1636 he founded Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, where he spent the rest of a long and 
noble hfe. 

Freedom in religious thinking, separation of Church and 
State, just treatment of the Indians through the purchase of 
their lands, — these were the things for which Roger Wilhams 
conspicuously stood in the Puritan commonwealth which re- 
jected him and in the new colony which he founded. His 
views were far in advance of those of his time, and like all 
true reformers he suffered for his tolerant spirit and bold 
speaking; but his ideas have been among the great liberalizing 
forces in the making of American institutions, civil and religious. 
His strenuous advocacy of the rights of the individual conscience 
involved him in a bitter controversy with the Reverend John 
Cotton, in which, it is freely agreed, Williams had the better 
of the argument. 

His chief work. The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause 
of Conscience, pubhshed in 1644, is a rather tedious dialogue 
between two controversialists. Peace and Truth, quite in the 
manner of the seventeenth century rehgious pamphlet. Now 
and then, however, one comes across passages not unworthy of 
comparison with the noble prose of his mighty contemporary, 
John Milton. Not so commendable, either in form or spirit, 
is the attack on the leader of the Quakers, George Fox Digged 
out of his Burr owes, whom Wilhams, contrary to his usual 



60 . AMERICAN LITERATURE 

charitable practice, treated with scant toleration. His interest 
in the Indians early showed itself in the preparation of his 
Key into the Language of America, designed as a help to mission-^ 
ary work among the savages. The letters of Roger Williams 
reveal a strong and fearless personality; they are written in a 
vigorous style, the outward *'form and pressure" of a singularly* 
independent mind. 

Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652). — In strong contrast to Roger 
Williams was the Reverend Nathaniel Ward, conservative and 
satirist. Born in England, educated at Cambridge, lawyer 
and traveler, Ward became a Puritan minister and sailed for 
America in 1634 to avoid the persecutions under Laud, that 
arch-enemy of Puritanism. At Agawam, now Ipswich, in 
Massachusetts, he was pastor for two or three years, resigning 
because of ill-health. After compiHng a code of laws for the 
colony and writing a Httle book, he returned to England in 
1647, where he spent the few remaining years of his life. 

The volume which has kept Ward's name alive is the greatest 
literary curiosity of early colonial times : The Simple Cobbler of 
Aggawammy in America. Willing to help ^mend his Native 
Country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper-Leather and sole, 
with all the honest stitches he can take. And as willing never 
to be paid for his work, by Old English wonted pay. It is his 
trade to patch all the year long, gratis. This long and whimsical 
title gives some idea both of the man and his method. The 
Simple Cobbler, like Carlyle's Sartor Resartus in the nineteenth 
century, attempts to ''patch up" things in general. It was 
written in the main for the people and government of Great 
Britain, where it was published in 1647, though touching on 
American themes and composed in America. The popularity 
of this queer work is sho^vn by the appearance of four editions 
in one year. Three themes on which Ward was fond of exer- 
cising his vitriolic wit were rehgious toleration, woman's 
fashions, and the Irish. To him the time was out of joint: he 
hated and professed not to understand the phrase ''liberty of 



COLONIAL PERIOD 51 

conscience"; he thought the women of his day made frights 
of themselves in following the vanities of fashion; English 
pohtics and manners he felt to be thoroughly degenerate. 
One brief extract Tvdll sufficiently illustrate his picturesque 
and pungent style, his fondness for coining Latinistic adjectives, 
and make clear to the modern reader why llie Simple Cobbler 
was so T\ddely read in its own generation : 

I honour the woman that can honour herself with her attire; a good 
text always deserves a fair margent; I am not much offended, if I see a 
trim far trimmer than she that wears it; in a word, whatever Christianity 
or Civility will allow, I can afford with London measure: but when I 
hear a nugiperous^ Gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is in this 
week; what the nudiustertian ^ fashion of the Court; with egge ^ to be in 
it in all haste, whatever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a 
trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of Nothing, 
fitter to be kickt, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honoured 
or humoured. 

From Nathaniel Ward, the most eccentric and satirical of 
the New England clergy, aggressively bigoted, though regarding 
himself as a reformer, we may pass to the consideration of two 
thoroughly representative figures in the realms of theology and 
ethics, Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. 

COTTON MATHER (1663-1728) 

A Famous Family. — The Mather family, sometimes called 
the ''Mather Dynasty," was notably influential in the rehgious, 
educational, and political affairs of seventeenth century New 
England. Richard Mather, the first of the tribe, came to 
Massachusetts in 1635; he was an Oxford graduate, learned 
and zealous, and one of the authors of the Bay Psalm Book, 
already mentioned. His son. Increase Mather, was pastor of 
the North Church in Boston, President of Harvard, agent of 
the colony in England for a while, and author of about one 
hundred and fifty books and pamphlets, including sermons, 

^Frivolous, or silly, 'N§w§st. 'Impulse, 



52 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



^ 




COTTON :.:ather 



By his marriage with the daughter cf John Cotton, the most 
prominent minister of the first three decades of colonial history, 
two leading families were united. Mather's life is virtually 
an epitome of the history of Massachusetts for over thirty 
years, and the waning fortunes of extreme Puritanism found 
in him, as in his distinguished son, a valiant but losing defender. 
Cotton ]\Iather was the last and, in popular reputation, the 
greatest of the ''Mather D^masty." A wonderfully precocious 
child, he was prepared to enter Harvard College at eleven, 
graduating at fifteen; by the time he was seventeen he w^as an 
active preacher. He became his father's assistant at the North 
Church, and for years father and son worked side by side as 
the two most intellectual forces in the colony. A Puritan of 
the Puritans, Cotton Mather lived a life of ascetic severity, 
subjecting his body and spirit to the most rigid discipline and 



COLONIAL PERIOD 53 

working with fanatical devotion at his tasks. His learning 
was extensive and his memory remarkably retentive, so that he 
made pedantic use of the . seven languages at his command. 
There is something almost pathetic about his struggle to 
bolster up the old Puritan orthodoxy in the face of a steadily 
advancing liberalism which seemed to him destructive of divine 
foundations. Troubles came thick upon him: his ambition 
to be president of Harvard was not gratified; enemies attacked 
him and friends deserted him because of his participation in 
the witchcraft madness at Salem; his children died one after 
another, one son was a profligate, and one of his three wives 
became insane. And yet so great was his egotism, so intolerant 
his manners, so recalcitrant his temper, that posterity, while 
admiring his intellectual greatness, has had few words of praise 
for his strong though somewhat unlovely personality. 

The Magnalia. — That Cotton Mather was a prodigious worker 
is proved by the fact that he wrote as many as four hundred 
books, small and great. Of this respectable library one work 
may be regarded as the author's masterpiece: Magnalia Christi 
Americana, or Ecclesiastical History of New England, from 
its First Planting in the year 1620, unto the year of our .Lord, 
1698. This huge work of over a thousand pages is divided into 
seven parts, treating respectively the discovery and settlement 
of the new land, the lives of the New England governors, the 
hves of distinguished ministers, the history of Harvard College, 
an account of the churches, a record of '^many wonderful 
providences," and a recital of the ''manifold afflictions and 
disturbances of the churches in New England" entitled 'The 
Wars of the Lord." The Magnalia, as will readily be guessed, 
is a medley, a voluminous history of things in general. The 
ecclesiastical interests of the commonwealth receive the main 
emphasis, but in a theocratic government such as the writer 
held the Puritan state to be, all matters were regarded as 
fundamentally religious, or at least ethical. 

The work has been called the ''prose epic of New England 



54 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Puritanism/' and so it is; it is, moreover, the last elaborate plea 
for the old order, which, as Mather sadly and even indignantly 
perceived, was weakening with the new generation at the 
dawn of another century; it is the final summary and defense of 
the faith and deeds of the Puritan fathers. The style is arti- 
ficial and pedantic, except when the writer now and then gives 
an account of some bit of local history, forgets his learning, and 
in the warmth of his emotion becomes human and concrete. 
The book was pubhshed in London in 1702; by that time, 
largely through the influence of Bunyan and Dryden, a simpler 
style had come into English literature ; and after Cotton Mather, 
a more natural form of expression was destined to take the place 
of the fantastic and pompous prose of our early seventeenth 
century writers. 

To the modern reader, whom pages bristling with classical 
quotations seriously annoy, the passages in the Magnolia on 
witchcraft and a few others in a direct narrative style will most 
appeal. With all its defects, this great work holds a secure 
place as a mine of valuable, though by no means exact, informa- 
tion on colonial life and thought. Another book by Cotton 
Mather, commonly known as Essays to Do Good, reveals the 
more practical side of his nature. This might be inferred from 
the praise bestowed on it by Benjamin Franklin, who told 
Mather's son that he had derived great benefit from it in his 
youth; readers of Franklin's Autobiography will recall the 
mention of Essays to Do Good among the books which helped 
that systematic young printer. It is an interesting matter for 
speculation, indeed, how the confession of an obligation from 
so utilitarian a man as Franklin to a book of such professedly 
spiritual purpose as Mather's, would have affected the last 
of the great Puritan divines. But the times had changed, and 
the practical philosopher was the embodiment of a different 
attitude of mind. Meantime another great preacher had 
3,risen, and bis name was Jonathan Edwards, 



COLONIAL PERIOD 55 

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758) 

His Life and Personality. — ^Jonathan Edwards, greatest of colonial 
divines, was born in Connecticut in 1703, son of a clergyman. From his 
childhood he was a student of philosophy and science : at ten he wrote an 
essay against materialism: at twelve he sent to an English naturalist a 
paper on the habits of spiders; at fourteen he read Locke's Essay con- 
cerning the Human Understanding. After graduating from Yale in 1720, 
he studied theology, preached in New York several months, then tutored 
two years at Yale, and finally became pastor of the church at Northamp- 
ton, Massachusetts. Here he remained for twenty-three years, that is, 
until 1750, when, because of certain differences with his congregation, 
he was forced to resign. The next seven years he spent as missionary to 
the Indians at Stockbridge in the same state, where in a sort of spiritual 
exile he composed his most famous work. In 1758 he was elected Presi- 
dent of Princeton College, but he died shortly after he entered upon the 
duties of that office. 

Intellectual power and poetic sensibility show in the face and in the 
writings of Jonathan Edwards. He was the most spiritual and refined 
of the great New England preachers; gifted with a wonderfully analytic 
mind and high artistic sensitiveness, he was capable of prolonged and 
severe thought and a beauty of expression which sometimes borders on 
poetry. He communed with God and nature in a spirit of quiet rapture 
that one is accustomed to associate with the .visions of a medieval saint. 
Indeed, there was about this man an atmosphere of saintliness, the ele- 
ments of which were the white light of reason and the emotional coloring 
of religious ecstasy. Like him in spirit was his wife, Sarah Pierrepont 
of New Haven, to whose mystic beauty of soul he paid tribute in a passage 
worthy of Dante to his Beatrice: 

"They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved 
of that great Being who made and rules the world, and that there 
are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or 
other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding 
sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to 
meditate on Him; that she expects after a while to be received 
up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up 
into heaven; being assured that He loves her too well to let her 
remain at a distance from Him always . . . She has a strange 
sweetness in her mind, singular purity in Jier affections; is most 
just and conscientious in her conduct; and you could not per- 
suade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give all the 
world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a won- 



56 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



derful calmness and universal benevolence cf mind; especially 
after this great God has manifested Himself to her mind. She 
will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly; and 
seems to be always full cf joy and pleasure, and no one knows for 
what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, 
and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her." 




His Works.— The 

writings of Jonathan 
Edwards consist of 
several strictly the- 
ological works ; an 
account of the relig- 
ious revival in New 
England about 1740, 
entitled Narratives of 
Surprising Conver- 
sions; numerous ser- 
mons preached at 
Northampton; and 
the great Treatise on 
the Freedom of the 
Will (1754). The 
theological works de- 
fend with elaborate 
argument and Scrip- 
tural quotation the 
extreme Calvinistic 
doctrines which were 
beginning to lose 
their hold in New 
England. Surprising 
Conversions is a re- 
cord of the ''Great Awakening" which stirred the colonies about 
the middle of the eighteenth century, and in which the great 
English preacher Whit c^ eld took a prominent part — a move- 



MEMORIAL TO EDWARDS 

Northampton, ]\Iassachusetts 



COLONIAL PERIOD 57 

ment that influenced religious thought and action in Great 
Britain. 

In the theological works of Edwards we find a change of 
emphasis in regard to the punishment of men for their sins. 
The earlier Puritans insisted on trying religious offenders in 
the civil courts and inflicting penalties by Scriptural authority. 
By the eighteenth century, however, this system was breaking 
down. The next stage was a literal and militant apphcation 
of the doctrine of future punishment: men might escape here, 
but unspeakable torments awaited them hereafter. The 
future punishment of the wicked loomed large in the preaching 
of Jonathan Edwards; his famous sermon, '^Sinners in the Hands 
of an Angry God,'^ preached at Enfield in 1741, is the most 
powerful pulpit utterance on that theme in our theological 
literature. On the minds of the hearers the effect is said to 
have been appalling: agonized groans interrupted the speaker, 
whose calm, deliberate manner and merciless logic made 
the message the more awful to those who granted the premises 
of his argument, elaborated with famihar illustrations. Even 
after nearly two centuries one can hardly read this sermon with- 
out a shudder, and certainly not without an impulse of admira- 
tion for the mind which could so simply and yet so graphically 
depict an imagined scene of fiery torture. It is Dantean in its 
terrible realism. 

And yet posterity has been too prone to judge Jonathan 
Edwards entirely by his discourses on Divine vengeance, 
forgetting the emphasis he also put upon Divine love and the 
interest he felt in the gentler aspects of nature as manifestations 
of Divine beauty and beneficence. This preacher of stern and 
forbidding doctrines was at heart a poet, as the following 
passage, written after a memorable season of solitary medita- 
tion, will show: 

After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became 
more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The 
appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, 



58 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. 
God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in 
everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in 
the grass, flowers, trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly 
to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; 
and in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold 
the sweet glory of God in these things: in the meantime, singing forth, 
with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer . . 
, The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared 
like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low 
and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant 
beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing 
around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst 
of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms, 
to drink in the light of the sun. 

To the delicate sense of beauty in Edwards was joined a 
mental power of remarkable keenness and depth. Critics 
generally agree that his Treatise on the Freedom of the Will is 
among the few real contributions by Americans to the thought 
of the world. In this work, written in the quiet of his retire- 
ment at Stockbridge, he seeks with much learned and subtle 
argument to prove that the human will is not free. Believing 
with all his soul in the absolute sovereignty of God, he could 
not reconcile man's freedom with this attribute of the Deity. 
He held that the cause of an act of the will is the motive, and 
that therefore the motive does not leave the will free to act of 
itself. To the modern mind this is not a very convincing sort 
of argument; but whether we accept the logician's conclusions 
or not, we are compelled to admit the clearness and intellectual 
cleverness of his reasoning. While the Treatise on the Freedom 
of the Will hardly belongs to Uterature proper, it nevertheless 
is a monument of metaphysical strength and it established 
the reputation of Jonathan Edwards as a thinker of the first 
rank. With the passing of this mental giant the first period 
of American literature may be said to close. 

Other Writers in New England. — Other writers and writings in New 
England during the Colonial Period were the following: Francis Higgin- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



59 



son's New England^s Plantation (1630), "a description of the commodities 
and discommodities of that country"; William Wood's New England's 
Prospect (1634), ^'a true, lively and experimental" account of the geog- 
raphy, climate, products, and natives of that region; Edward Johnson's 
Wonder-Working Providence ofZion's Saviour in New England (1654); Daniel 
Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians in New England (1674), a plea 
for the salvation of the Indians; Sermons of Thomas Hooker, Thomas 
Shepard, John Cotton; John Eliot's Translation of the Bible into the 
Algonquin language (1661-'63), a monument to the industry, learning, and 
missionary zeal of the 
great ^'Apostle to the In- 
dians"; Thomas Prince's 
History of New England 
(1736). 

In addition to these 
works one other at least 
is richly deserving of 
mention — that quaint 
and curious little volume 
known as The New Eng- 
land Primer J a medley of 
religious knowledge in 
verse and prose on which 
children were brought up 
for more than a hundred 
years. Rhymed alpha- 
bet, lists of words to be 
spelled, catechism, lulla- 
bies, versified religious 
instruction. Biblical quo- 
tations, are contained in 
The New England Primer, 
aptly called the "Little 
Bible of New England." 

It is estimated that two million copies of this book were printed and 
sold during the eighteenth century; the few copies now in existence 
represent forty editions. (See the fac-simile reprint of The New Eng- 
land Primer, made by Ginn and Company from an original owned by G. A. 
PUmpton, Esq., of New York.) 




Time cuts down all. 
Both great and fmall. 

Uriah's heauteousWife 
madeDavidfeek hislife 

Whales in tha Sea, 
GOD's Voice obey. 

Xerxes thegreatdid die 
And fb muft you and L 

Youth forward flips. 
Death fooncfl nips. 

Zaccheus he 
Did climb the Tree 
His Lord to fee* 
B 

A PAGE FROM THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER 



60 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 
THE PERIOD IN OUTLINE il607-1765) 



LITERATURE 
I. In Virginia 

John Smith's True R.elation (1608) 

William Strachey's True Reper- 
tory of the Wrack (1610) 

Beverley's History of Virginia 
(1705) 

William Byrd's History of the 
Dividing Line (1728) 

George Sandys's Translation of 

Ovid (1626) 
''Bacon's Epitaph" (anonymous) 

II. In Massachusetts 

William Bradford's History of 

Plymouth (1630-'46) 
John Winthrop's Journal (History 

of New England) 
Morton's New English Canaan 
Samuel Sewall's Diary (1673-1729) 
Ward's Simple Cobbler of Agga- 

wamm 
Cotton Mather's Magnalia 
Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of 

the Will (1754) 

Bay Psalm Book (1640); first book 

printed in America 
Anne Bradstreet's Poems 
Michael Wigglesworth's Day of 

Doom (1715) 



HISTORY 

English Settlement at Jamestown, 
Virginia, 1607 

First Representative Assembly 
(Jamestown), 1619 

Landing of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth, Massachusetts, 1620 

Dutch settle New Amsterdam 
(New York), 1623 

Harvard College founded, 1636 

English take New Amsterdam, 1664 

Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, 1676 

First Paper-mill in America, near 
Philadelphia, 1690 

First American Newspaper, Public 
Occurrences (Boston), 1690 

William and Mary College founded, 
1692 

First permanent Newspaper, 
Boston News-Letter, 1704 

French and Indian War, 1754-'59 



Principal Themes: Adventure, History, Religion, Ethics 

Romantic adventure is more prominent in the Southern writers, Moral 
and Religious subjects in the Northern. In general, the writers reflect 
respectively the spirit of the Cavalier and the Puritan. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 61 

SOME USEFUL BOOKS 

HistoricaL — Osgood's American Colonies in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, Fisher's The Colonial Era, Fiske's The Beginnings of New Eng- 
land and Old Virginia and her Neighbors (Houghton), Thwaites's 
The Colonies ("Epochs of American History" series). Lodge's Eng- 
lish Colonies in America, Tyler's Narratives of Early Virginia, 
Eggleston's Beginnings of a Nation, Tyler's Cradle of the Republic 
and England in America, Doyle's English Colonies in America, 
Cooke's Virginia ("American Commonwealths" series). 

Literary. — Tyler's History of American Literature from 1607 to 
1765 (Putnam), Caims's Early American Writers (Macmillan), 
Trent and Wells's Colonial Prose and Poetry (Crowell), Trent's 
Southern Writers (Macmillan), Stedman and Hutchinson's Library 
of American Literature (vols. I, II.) 

Representative selections from colonial authors may be found in 
Cairns, Trent and Wells, Stedman and Hutchinson, Old South 
Leaflets (Boston), Maynard's Historical Readings- (Merrill), Chron- 
icles of the Pilgrims (Everyman's Library — Dutton), Trent's 
Southern Writers. 

Social. — Earle's Home Life in Colonial Days, Colonial Dames and 
Goodwives, Child Life in Colonial Days, Customs and Fashions 
(Macmillan), Fisher's Men, Women, and Manners of Colonial Times; 
Holliday's Wit and Humor of Colonial Days; Hawthorne's Scarlet 
Letter; Cooke's Virginia Comedians; Mary Johnston's Audrey and 
To Have and to Hold; Chandler and Thames's Colonial Virginia. 



* CHAPTER TWO 

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 

1765-1815 

A Time of Transition 

The Beginnings of Nationality. — Three thousand miles of 
ocean separated the American colonies from the home land; 
attachment to the soil of their adoption had grown through 
the years; the distance from England and the struggles to build 
up local governments had caused a sturdy seh-reliance to 
develop in the souls of these transplanted Englishmen; little 
was needed now to change self-reliance into a desire for 
independence. The colonies stretched from Georgia to Maine 
along the Atlantic coast; westward the AUeghanies and the 
Mississippi were the barriers which the colonists had not 
passed; France owned Canada and the West. Each EngHsh 
colony was essentially independent of the others, and between 
those of the North and those of the South there was little 
communication. As yet nothing had happened to draw them 
together in action and purpose; no opportunity had been given 
them to feel and to test their united strength. This opportunity 
came at the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754, 
which was a contest between France and England for the 
possession of the North American continent. The victory of 
England meant the permanence of Anglo-Saxon civilization 
in North America; henceforth language and institutions were 
to be English. That war formed a crisis in colonial America. 
The colonies for the first time got together against a common 
foe, and in this union of effort we really find the beginnings of 
American nationality. In that conflict one man emerged from 
obscurity, young George Washington, of Virginia, who was 

[62] 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 63 

soon destined to play a conspicuous part in a mightier struggle 
for independence. 

The American Revolution. — ^What we know as the ''Revo- 
lutionary War'' was the result of certain legislation in Great 
Britain objectionable to the colonies and also of a developing 
sense of political freedom among them; the protest against 
political oppression was an occasion to express an already 
widespread and deep-seated desire to manage their own 
affairs. The colonists wanted to keep house for themselves. 
This sentiment had been considerably strengthened since the 
treaty of peace in 1763 brought to a close the French and 
Indian War, among the results of which may be mentioned 
the imiting of the colonists, the training of many of them to 
fight, the lessening of the need of protection against the French, 
and the removal of hostile rivals from most of the region east 
of the Mississippi. To the colonial imagination the future 
must have begun to seem big with promise. However that 
may be, the trend of events speedily made for separation from 
the mother country. 

The new king, who came to the throne in 1760 as George III, 
had no mind for concihation with the American colonies, 
though he had been duly and eloquently warned by Burke and 
Pitt of the probable result of his obstinate poHcy of coercion. 
The colonies were forbidden to trade with any other nation 
except England, British troops were sent to America, taxes 
were imposed upon the colonists, who were not represented in 
the British Parliament, and in particular a Stamp Act was 
passed in 1765, requiring the colonists to use stamps on legal 
and business documents, newspapers, and pamphlets. The 
unreasonable attitude of the EngHsh government together 
with the growing desire of the colonists for liberty led to the 
inevitable conflict, the Revolution, from 1775 to 1783, resulting 
in our pohtical freedom and the birth of a new nation. It 
should be remembered, however, that nationality was not won 
simply by the sword, but that back of Washington and his 



64 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



generals and his ' 'continentals" there was being waged by 
orators and essayists a fierce war for liberty. Political pam- 
phlets and orations had much to do with the triumph of the 
cause of the colonists. 

The Young Nation. — When the war for political independence 
ended in 1783, the colonies were free but they were not united 
in any stable form of government. Through lack of a strong 
federation of states, some of which were jealous of others, 
there w^as grave danger, indeed, of disunion. The * 'Declaration 
of Independence" (1776) was a manifesto of the principles for 




INDEPENDENCE HALL 

Philadelphia 



which the several commonwealths had fought and by virtue 
of which they proclaimed themselves states; now they needed 
a constitution as a working basis for a centralized government. 
This consti1}ution, embodying the counsels of then- wisest 
patriots, the states after many delays finally adopted. By 
1789 the new republic was organized and in operation, with 
George Washington, commander of the colonial army in the 
great war, as first President. This eminent man, whose well- 
poised character was even greater than his mJlitary and pohtical 
genius, expressed the wish in his ^ Tare well Addiess" to the 
American people, ''that union and brotherly love may be 
perpetual; that the free constitution which is the work of your 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 05 

hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration 
in every part may be stamped with wisdom and virtue." 

The acquisition by purchase from France in 1803 of Louisiana, 
a region extending from the Mississippi to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, doubled the national territory and opened the great West 
for exploration. Men's eyes began to turn longingly westward 
to the vast stretches of plain and mountain. Hardy pioneers 
hke Lewis and Clarke cut their way through the forests, blazing 
the trail for the home-maker and the state-builder. The 
nation, like a young giant, was begiiming to feel its strength 
and to have some faint idea of its imperial opportunity. About 
this time, moreover, the practical application of two important 
inventions, EU Whitney's cotton gin and Robert Fulton's 
steamboat, added immensely to the industrial progress of the 
new nation. That progress was temporarily checked, however, 
by the breaking out of a second war with Great Britain, due 
chiefly to the forcible removal of seamen from American ships 
for service on British vessels. The result of this war, which 
lasted from 1812 to 1815, was a victory for the United States. 
The conflict welded the states of the Republic into such a 
compact union that for nearly fifty years the country prospered 
politically and industrially without any serious interruption. 

Influence of English Literature. — The writings and speeches 
of the Revolutionary Period in America show the influence of 
the ' 'classical" prose and poetry of eighteenth century English 
literature. During this century Classicism, or hterary con- 
formity to ''classic" rules, gradually gave way to Romanticism,* 
a movement toward greater freedom of expression and deeper 
feehng. The tj^pical classicist in Enghsh prose was Samuel 
Johnson (1709-1784), whose formal, balanced style was im- 
itated by contemporary writers; the typical classicist in 
Enghsh poetry was Alexander Pope (1688-1744), whose 
artificial rhyming verses, called the "heroic couplet," were 

^For a discussion of Classicism and Romanticism, see the author's 
English Literature, pp. 217, 235, 278-'80. 



66 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

widely read and much admired by American versifiers. The 
somewhat formal and ornate oratory of Burke, Fox, and 
Sheridan had a decided influence upon the style of our Revo- 
lutionary orators. The easier style of Addison and Goldsmith 
affected the writing of Benjamin Franklin. Other English 
authors held in popular esteem on this side of the sea were the 
early novelists, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) and Henry 
Fielding (1707-1754) ; while the romantic, or '^Gothic," writers 
of fiction, such as Horace Walpole and Anne Radchffe, were 
reflected in the works of the first American novelist, Charles 
Brockden Brown. The great Romantic movement, however, 
which was at this time so significant a force in European 
literature and politics, was not so dominant in our early litera- 
ture as the older Classicism. Outside the poems of Freneau 
and the novels of Brown the influence of Romanticism was 
sHght. 

REVOLUTION LITERATURE 

American literature of this period consists of orations, 
political essays, journals and biography, poetry and romance. 
The most prominent figure is Frankhn, though properly speaking 
not a literary man; in literature proper, Freneau and Brown are 
conspicuous. Among the orators of the Revolution four may 
be selected as representative — James Otis and Samuel Adams 
in Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry in 
Virginia; from the political essayists may be chosen for brief 
consideration — John Adams, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamil- 
ton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. 
To this list, standing apart as a somewhat lonely figure, should 
be added the name of the New Jersey Quaker, John Woolman. 

Oratory 

The desire for liberty of one kind or another has been the 
inspiring cause of most great oratory. The beginnings of 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 67 

reformations or revolutions, when men were on the eve of 
changing their moral or political allegiance, have been the 
occasions of the most eloquent and effective oratory. A 
crisis in a people's history makes orators. So it happened in 
our struggle for independence: the orators had much to do 
with arousing the colonies to resist British oppression and to 
carry the war to a successful end; after independence was won, 
they helped to establish a stable form of government. Not 
everybody in the colonies favored war with Great Britain, 
and many became discouraged after the conflict had begun 
and were willing to have peace at almost any price. This was 
the orator's opportunity; he stimulated his fellow citizens to 
thought and action; he kept burning the waning fires of their 
patriotism. Several of these orators of the Revolution we may 
now briefly consider. 

James Otis (1725-1783). — James Otis was a prominent 
lawyer of Boston, a graduate of Harvard College, and a man of 
considerable literary culture. In 1761 the burning question in 
Massachusetts was whether the king's officers had the right 
to search private as well as pubhc houses for smuggled goods. 
Armed with the odious ''writs of assistance," or search warrants, 
these men caused endless annoyance. Otis delivered in the 
council chamber in Boston a long, impassioned speech protesting 
against this proceeding; he argued with learning and fiery 
eloquence against the legality of search warrants, which were 
often used against innocent citizens out of mere spite. This 
five hours' speech made a profound impression and established 
the reputation of James Otis as the foremost orator of the day 
in New England. John Adams, who was present, likened the 
orator to ''a flame of fire," and continued: "With a promptitude 
of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary 
of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, 
a prophetic glance of his eye into the future, and a torrent of 
impetuous eloquence, he hurried away everything before him. 
American independence was then and there born . . Every 



68 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I 
did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." Though 
the famous speech has not been preserved, the tradition of it 
handed down by those present makes us reahze how powerful 
was the orator's hold on his audience and, indeed, on his own 
generation through his silver-tongued defense of the rights 
of the colonists. Otis used his pen as well as his tongue in the 
cause of independence, his best known pamphlet being "Rights 
of the British Colonists Asserted and Proved." 
Samuel Adams (1722-1803). — More constructive and versatile 

than Otis was Samuel Adams, 
a Boston business man and 
politician, who, says Webster, 
"hungered and thirsted for 
the independence of his coun- 
tTy.'^ In the legislature and 
town meeting he was a leader, 
and in general an inspirer and 
director of the new democ- 
racy. Patriotic, incorrupti- 
ble, and enthusiastic for the 
cause of freedom, he sacri- 
ficed private gain for the 
good of his country and died 
poor. He held various poHt- 
ical offices : he was a member 
of the legislature and of the 
Continental congress, gover- 
nor of his state, and a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence. With many quahties of the 
successful politician, such as a strong and attractive personality 
and a power of direct appeal to the masses, were combined the 
practical ability, foresight, and vigor of a pioneer statesman. 
He drafted resolutions and carried them through by the force 
and persuasiveness of his oratory; he wrote scores of newspaper 




SAMUEL ADAMS 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 69 

articles in defense of popular rights; he put forth numerous 
pamphlets on vital pohtical matters, Y/hich this generation has 
not the patience to read. But even when expressing himself 
with the pen, he was the orator. The surviving fragments of 
his speeches give us little idea of what his power over men 
must have been, according to trustworthy tradition, so much 
does the man himself — the living voice, the flashing eye, the 
expressive features — count in oratory. We know enough, 
however, to put this ''chief incendiary," as his Tory enemies 
called him, among the great Revolutionary orators. 

Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794). — In the South voices were 
also being raised against British oppression and in sympathy 
with the sentiment for independence among the patriots of the 
North. One of the most accomplished of the Southern orators 
was Richard Henry Lee, of Westmoreland County, Virginia, 
whom his admirers named the ''American Cicero." Educated 
in England, whence his Cavalier ancestors had emigrated in the 
seventeenth century, young Lee returned to Virginia and 
entered political Hfe. As his forbears had been Royalist in 
their sympathies, it was hardly to be expected that Lee would 
become an aggressive revolutionist; and yet he promptly allied 
himself with the colonial side and was at once recognized as a 
leader. He prepared the "Address to the People of the 
Colonies," recommended by the General Congress of representa- 
tives from the Northern and Southern colonies held at Phila- 
delphia in 1774; and it was he who, two years later, was the 
mover of the Declaration of Independence. Before this he 
had summed up the strained situation between ,the mother 
country and the agitated colonies: "They wish to make us de- 
pendent, but they will make us independent; these oppressions 
will lead us to unite, and thus to secure our hberty." Thus this 
patriotic Virginian was a prophet of national union. From all 
accounts, Richard Henry Lee was a man of graceful, pleasing 
manners, and an elegant and forceful orator, but unfortunately 



70 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




his speeches have not come down to us, though we have an 
entertaining collection of his letters. 

Patrick Henry (1736- 1799) .—The greatest of Revolutionary 
orators was Patrick Henry, of Virginia, called by his con- 
temporaries the ''Man of the People" and the 'Trophet of 
Revolution.'' Born in Hanover County of an ancestry of 
education and refinement, Henry received his training ui books 

at home and not at 
college. He had some 
knowledge of the clas- 
sics and seems to have 
I been fond of Butler's 
^ Analogy, a work which 
I furnished many of the 
old-time youth with a 
* rather substantial sort 
; of mental diet. In his 
I boyhood Patrick 
. Henry is said to have 
been the pattern of an 
idler; later on, he tried 
storekeeping and farm- 
ing without success; 
then he studied law, 
and in 1763 found an 
opportunity in the f a- 
mous^'Parson'sCause'^ 
to show his power as a public speaker. This was the beginning 
of his long and distinguished career as an orator and states- 
man. The sleeping genius in him at last awoke and he soon 
became known as the most eloquent man of his time. 

Two speeches are specially famous — the one before the 
House of Burgesses at WiUiamsburg in 1765 against the Stamp 
Act, and the other in old St. John's Church in Richmond 
before the Virginia Convention in 1775. The latter speech, 



PATRICK HENRY 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



71 



ending with the words ''Give me Uberty or give me death/' is 
undoubtedly the best kno\\TL oration in our history and more 
famihar to Americans than any other piece of secular htera- 
ture. One cannot read the words of that imperfectly reported 
speech even now, far removed from the crisis out of which it 
was born, without something of a thrill, in spite of more than a 
century of schoolboy declaiming. ''Your passions are no longer 
your own when he addresses them," said George Mason, that 





L,. 






ST. JOHN'S CHURCH 
Richmond, Virginia 



.:§/■ ■• 




''4^gm^^f^&^^^^-j!^ -A 



able fellow Virginian of Henry's. He swept men off their feet. 
This was natural eloquence; the man, the message, and the 
critical occasion made a great oration. The spell of the speaker 
was too strong over the hearer to allow him to take it down; 
and when the orator tried in the chillier atmosphere of his 
study to reproduce it, the winged words would not come back. 
And so we cannot know exactly what the original speeches, 
hot from the brain and heart of genius, were. We know this, 
though, that the eloquence of Patrick Henry was a mighty 



72 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

force iti welding the colonies together at the beginning of a 
struggle which resulted in national selfhood — a struggle more 
significant than even he himself then dreamed. 

The Political Essay 

While the orators were agitating the question of independence 
for the colonies before legislative bodies, the writers of essays 
on the constitutional aspects of the problem were also busy. 
It was a time of newspaper articles and political pamphlets. 
No phase of the important matter of nation-making was 
neglected: the fundamental principles of liberty, the nature 
of the -new constitution, the functions of government, the 
views of the two political parties, were thoroughly discussed. 
Strictly speaking, these political essays are not pure litera- 
ture, but some of them are so well written and the issues 
they set forth are so integral a part of our great formative 
period, that the literary historian must give at least a brief 
account of their authorship and significance. Wherever such 
essays reveal a sense for style and a desire on the part of the 
writer to make clear great abiding principles, without an appeal 
to mere partisanship, they deserve to be ranked as contributions 
to our national prose hterature. Typical of the long list of 
poHtical essayists are John Adams, Thomas Paine, Alexander 
Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. To these 
should be added the exalted name of George Washington. 

John Adams (1735-1826). — John Adams, cousin of Samuel 
Adams already considered, was successively diplomatist, first 
Vice-President, and second President of the United States. 
Out of his extensive experience and reading he wrote a number 
of essaj^s for the newspapers and several long works, the most 
important of which is the Defense of the Constitution^ published 
in 1787. In this book he makes an exhaustive study of various 
forms of government from the earliest periods. To the reader of 
to-day, however, the Diary (1755-1785) and the Letters, of 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 73 

which he wrote a great many, are far more interesting. In 
them we find reflected a vigorous personahty in various moods — 
some of which were certainly not amiable — and we have a 
record of men and events of the time in graphic pictures and 
telling phrases. The Diary and the correspondence of John 
Adams form a rich storehouse of information for the American 
historian. 

Thomas Paine (1737-1809). — Thomas Paine, a native 
Enghshman, came to America through the influence of Franklin 
who met him in England, and became editor of the Pennsyl- 
vania Magazine. The practice which this editorial work 
afforded stood him in good stead when in 1776 he turned to 
writing pamphlets. That year he published Common Sense, 
strongly advocating separation from Great Britain. Common 
Sense is one of the ablest pamphlets of the day and did much 
to help the Revolutionary cause. Its popularity may be 
inferred from the fact that a hundred and twenty thousand 
copies were sold in three months and that half a milHon copies 
must have been read in this country and Europe. Paine now 
gave himself with energy to the struggle for independence, 
serving in the army and elsewhere. His services to the colonies 
in their fight for nationality were gratefully recognized by 
Congress at the close of the war. About this time he went to 
France where his later life was darkened by a short imprison- 
ment for opposing the execution of the French king. He also 
offended England by a reply to a speech of Burke's. He 
attacked Washington for not procuring his release from prison 
in Paris and by this attack made many enemies in the United 
States. But that which added most to the unpopularity of this 
eccentric man was his The Age of Reason, a book that made 
his name accursed in many minds. 

Paine's reputation for hostihty to rehgion has led posterity 
very largely to lose sight of his patriotic services during the 
Revolution and the real merits of his two pamphlets. Common 
Sense and The Crisis. The Age of Reason is more offensive 



74 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in manner than in the matter, which in so tolerant an age as 
ours would probably excite httle comment; indeed, the book 
has long ago met its just deserts and few read it now. The 
tone of the work is flippant and generally in bad taste, in 
keeping with the irreverent spirit of deahng with sacred things 
common in the eighteenth century. Now, when it comes to 
The Crisis, the modern reader will understand at once why 
that work had such an influence over the thoughtful men of 
the time. The style is direct and vital, at times even breezy, 
and now and then an epigram sticks in the reader's memory. 
Washington thought so highly of the pamphlet as to have it 
read to the army at Valley Forge for encouragement. The 
opening sentences of The Crisis have often been quoted: 

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and 
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their 
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man 
and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have 
this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious 
the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is 
dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to 
put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so 
celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. 

**The Federalist": Hamilton; Madison; Jay. — Less popular 

and less immediately influential than Paine's pamphlets — 
though it was much praised and proved more far-reaching in 
its effects than these— was The Federalist, the joint production 
of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. This 
series of political essays was originally contributed during the 
years 1787-'88 to New York papers in the form of letters to the 
people, for the purpose of defending and interpreting the 
newly adopted national Constitution. Considerable opposition 
to the Constitution in several states — notably that in Virginia 
led by Patrick Henry — made such a series of articles particularly 
timely. They were collected in 1788 in one volume and named 
The Federalist, a work which has come to be regarded as one of 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 75 

our greatest political classics. As a clear exposition of the 
theory of government it has not been excelled, and its luminous 
arguments, dealing with basic principles, have been the admira- 
tion of pubUcists throughout our national existence. 

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), who wrote more than half 
of the eighty-five papers in The Federalist, was born in the 
West Indies, but came to New York at fifteen and entered 
King's College (now Columbia University), where as a student 
he began writing for the press on pohtical subjects. From 
that time to his death, he was active in public life, — in the 
army, in Congress, and as a member of Washington's cabinet. 
Hamilton was the leader of the Federalist party and an able 
defender of the principles of centralized government. In 
clearness of style and comprehensiveness of statement he is not 
surpassed by any of our pohtical essayists. 

James Madison (1751-1836), who was associated with 
Hamilton and Jay in writing The Federalist, was a Virginian, a 
graduate of Princeton College, member of Congress, secretary 
of State, and President of the United States. He has been 
called the "Father of the Constitution" because he fought so 
strenuously in the Virginia and national constitutional con- 
ventions for the adoption of the Constitution and explained 
and defended it so ably in The Federalist. He was a man of 
scholarly ability and philosophic temperament, a clear and 
painstaking writer on constitutional questions. Professor 
Trent is inchned to the opinion that Madison ''approaches the 
best type of sohd, well-trained, and widely informed British 
statesman more nearly than does any other American."^ 

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). — The most accompHshed, 
democratic, and farseeing of the nation-builders was Thomas 
Jefferson, author of the ''Declaration of Independence," 
minister to France, President of the United States, and founder 
cf the' University of Virginia. Educated at Wilham and 
Mary College, he early entered pohtical life, and until his death 

iTrent: History of American Literafwe, p. 152. 



76 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 







THOMAS JEFFERSON 



at Monticello in 182B he exerted a notable influence in his 
state and nation. A man. of unusually rich and varied culture, 
he was both a brilliant theorist arid a practical statesman. 
In him great mental power and wide knowledge were united 
with democratic sympathies more harmoniously than in any 
other political leader of his day. He recognized the worth of 
the individual and beheved with all his soul in the rights of the 
masses; and so he touches the imagination of men of to-day as 
few of the elder statesmen do. He seems modern and therefore 
interests us, which is another way of saying that he was an 
idealist; and all idealists appeal to the future. 

In the light of our national development it is very clear that 
Jefferson was a prophet; indeed, so far ahead of his own genera- 
tion in his thinking and planning was this remarkable man, 
that not even yet have we realized his ideals. For instance. 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



77 



he worked out an elaborate scheme of pubHc education which 
long seemed quite theoretical, but which recent experience is 
showing to be beneficently practical. The aims of Jefferson 
were democratic in the best sense. If we judge from his 
epitaph, composed by himself, the three of his many services 
by which he wished to be remembered are the writing of the 
"Declaration of Independence/' the proposing of the statute 
for religious freedom in Virginia, and the founding of the 










^^mm- 



..i&- 



MONTICELLO 
Jefferson's Home near University of Virginia 

University of Virginia. These contributions, it will be noted, 
stand respectively for three kinds of liberty — political, spiritual, 
and intellectual. 

As a writer Jefferson is at his best in the ''Declaration of 
Independence,'* though his first -Tnaugural Address" has 
decided literary merit. The immortal ''Declaration" appeals 
to the heart as well as to the headj-'and is therefore much more 
than a mere state paper. The introduction and the conclusion 
strike a note of real eloquence, despite the fact that the some- 
what sonorous and formal style is no longer that of our best 
prose; certainly the form of statement and the abiding truth of 



78 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the principles laid doTvn, also justify the classification of that 
document as literature. And if the germinal and tonic power 
of that paper in the cause of freedom the world over be taken 
into consideration, assuredly its author should be placed among 
the great creative geniuses. The first 'Tnaugural Address" is a 
political classic that should be read by every one who would 
understand the elemental principles of repubhcan government 
and the motives which inspired the founders of the American 
nation. 

George Washington (1732-1799).— It would not be correct, 
of course, to call Washington a literary man, nor in truth does 
such a designation rightly belong to the pohtical essayists who 
have just been considered, for they as well as the 'father of 
his Country" T\Tote literature only incidentally. The 'Tare- 
well Address" of Washington, however, is written in prose of 
such dignity and nobility and its thought is so solemnly sincere 
that it has long held a secure place among American prose 
classics. It has the hallowed tone of a benediction. The 
same high seriousness characterizes the letter ''To the Gover- 
nors of all the States" and other communications of this well- 
poised and august personahty. After all, it is the exalted 
character of Washington which, more than anything else, gives 
his writing its noble quaUty. 

LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE STATES 

The Middle Colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
vania, were settled by the English later than the Northern and 
Southern colonies already considered. In the last third of 
the seventeenth century there appeared a number of works in 
the Middle Colonies of a descriptive and historical nature, just 
as earher, similar books had been pubUshed about the older 
colonies. These pamphlets hardly merit, however, any at- 
tention in so brief a work as this. During the eighteenth 
century the Middle Colonies became more prominent in 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 79 

literature, with Philadelphia as the intellectual center. This 
city was second to Boston in literary prominence for the first 
sixty or seventy years of that century, and then New York 
began to surpass it, as we shall see in the next chapter. The 
population of the Middle Colonies was more mixed than that 
of the New England and Southern Colonies, and conditions 
were more favorable than in New England to freedom of 
expression. This was particularly true in Pennsylvania, which 
had been settled by Penn and his Quakers (1682), who believed 
in hberty of thought and conscience. Accordingly, we find in 
Philadelphia in the eighteenth century widespread interest in 
science and a generous literary culture. A printing press was 
early set up there; the first magazine in America was published 
in that city; and there was established the first public Hbrary. 

Besides an honorable list of scientists who flourished in 
colonial Philadelphia — such men as Bartram, the botanist; 
Rittenhouse, astronomer and mathematician; and Thomas 
Godfrey, inventor of the quadrant, — there were Thomas 
Godfrey, Jr., the poet, and Francis Hopkinson, accomplished 
wit and versifier. 

Thomas Godfrey (1736-1763), son of the mathematician 
of that name, was bom in Philadelphia and died in North 
Carolina in his twenty-seventh year. His brief life was spent 
in business and incidentally in writing verse, some of which 
was published in a magazine of his native city. Besides a 
number of short poems, which show the influence of seven- 
teenth and eighteenth century English poets, Godfrey wrote a 
tragedy. The Prince of Parthia, which enjoys the distinction 
of being the first ever written in America. It was played in 
Philadelphia in 1767. While not without merit. The Prince 
of Parthia is naturally a crude performance and should be 
judged as a promise of greater things from its youthful author, 
whose career was cut short by untimely death. 

Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), lawyer, member of the 
Continental Congress, Federal judge, and signer of the Declara- 



80 AMERICAN LITER A.TURE 

tion of Independence, was one of the most accomplished and 
versatile men of his day. He tried his hand at various kinds 
of writing — prose allegory, essays, orations, scientific papers, 
songs, satires and burlesques, — and with conspicuous success, 
if we may judge from his contemporary fame. He was 
interested in all sorts of things, being, besides a learned and 
upright judge, an amateur scientist, a painter of local renown, 
a musician and composer. His best known prose writing is "A 
Pretty Story," an allegory with some of the genial humor of 
Addison and a touch of the satirical method of Swift. One 
ballad of his still makes fairly good reading, ^The Battle of 
the Kegs," a political skit based on a real incident^ and im- 
mensely popular in Revolutionary times. Besides this best 
remembered ballad of Hopkinson, there is a song of his, ^'My 
Generous Heart Disdains," which strongly suggests the manner 
of the English Cavaher poets, Robert Herrick and George 
Wither, as these two stanzas show : 

My gen'rous heart disdains 

The slave of love to be, 
I scorn his servile chains, 
And boast my liberty. 
This whining 
And pining 
And wasting with care, 
Are not to my taste, be she ever so fair. 

Still uncertain is tomorrow, 
Not quite certain is to-day — 
Shall I waste my time in sorrow? 
Shall I languish life away? 
All because a cruel maid 
Hath not love with love repaid. 

^ ^An American inventor, David Bushnell, had filled a number of kegs 
with powder and placed in them a crude kind of machinery for ex- 
ploding them. This * 'fleet" of kegs he set afloat among the British 
shipping on the Delaware at Philadelphia in January, 1778. They 
caused considerable alarm to the enemy, but did little damage. This 
the occasion of Hopkinson' s ballad. 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 81 

Among the heralds of American literature Francis Hopkinson, 
sometimes seriously, sometimes gayly exercising his talent for 
art, but always reminiscent of the past and with only a faint 
presentiment of the new times, is an interesting figure. To 
his son, Joseph Hopkinson, we owe the famous patriotic ode, 
''Hail Columbia! Happy Land!'' 

The one great name in the literature of the Middle Colonies, 
which became states before his death, is of course Benjamin 
Frankhn, the Philadelphia printer. Another name, far less 
known but nevertheless worthy and interesting as a study in 
contrast, is that of the New Jersey Quaker, John Woolman. 
To a consideration of Franklin we will now proceed, and then 
to a brief sketch of his more spiritual contemporary. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790) 

His Life. — Benjamin Franklin, publicist, scientist, and statesman, 
was born in Boston in 1706, the fifteenth child of a maker of soap and 
candles. The boy had slender educational opportunities because of his 
father's large family, but he early acquired a taste for reading and 
eagerly devoured such books as he could get his hands on, prominent 
among which were Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Plutarch's Lives, and 
Addison's Spectator. After a little schooling, he was put to work at the 
age of ten in his father's shop, but not liking this, he threatened to run 
off to sea; thereupon, his father apprenticed him to his brother James, a 
printer. He remained with his brother four or five years, during which 
he read much and diligently sought to improve his style by writing 
essays modeled on the Spectator for his brother's paper, The New England 
Courani. Except for the earlier composition of two ballads, this was 
Franklin's entrance upon authorship. About this time he had a dis- 
agreement with his brother, and ran away to Philadelphia to make his 
living under freer conditions. 

Of his entrance into Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, Franklin has 
given an interesting account in his Autobiography. Here he found em- 
ployment with a printer, and soon attracted the attention of the governor 
of the colony, who sent him to England to buy a printing outfit. Franklin 
found, however, on his arrival in London that he had been grossly deceived 
by his supposed friend, the governor, and that neither money nor a letter 
of introduction had been sent as promised. The next eighteen months 
were spent in London by the eighteen-year-old boy in working in printing 



82 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



ofl5ces; meanwhile he was reading, writing, and meeting a few notable 
people. He returned to Philadelphia and engaged in the printing busi- 
ness, first in the employ of others, and later as owner of an establishment. 
He rapidly rose into prominence by his thrift and his interest in the 
affairs of the city, to whose welfare he made many substantial and endur- 
ing contributions. By 1748, when he was forty-two, he had made 
sufficient money to retire from business and devote himself to science 
and politics. 

The rest of Franklin's long life was spent in the service of his country 
and in scientific research and experiment, for which he had early de- 
veloped a fondness. He was a member of the Colonial Assembly and 
postmaster-general; he spent four or five years in London as the As- 
sembly's agent and twelve years more (1764-'75) on a political mission 
for the colonies; then he went to France in the interests of the American 
struggle for independence, where he continued to represent his country 
until after the Revolutionary War. In these diplomatic positions, both 
in England and in France, he won the high esteem of people, scholars, 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 83 

and statesmen. By the French in particular he was ardently admired. 
He returned to America in 1785, advanced in age and honors and still the 
public-spirited citizen. Two years later he was a member of the Con- 
stitutional Convention. In his long life of eighty-four years Franklin 
had known Cotton Mather and George Washington, had seen the colonies 
grow into a nation, and had signed four great historical documents — the 
"Declaration of Independence," the treaty of friendship with France, 
the treaty of peace with England, and the Constitution of the United 
States. 

Characteristics. — Shrewdness, thrift, and common sense, are 
the qualities most conspicuous in Franklin. He is the embodi- 
ment of the practical side of the American character. New 
Englander as he was by birth, he is in striking contrast to the 
Puritan with his religious mysticism. Both in teachings and 
in life Franklin was essentially utilitarian. ''To thine own 
self be true,'^ in Polonius's philosophy as well as in Franklin's, 
might be interpreted to mean "Look out for number one!" 
whether it applied to a man, a city, or a nation. Even virtue 
must be made to "pay." Franklin thought that by making 
men thrifty and contented you make them virtuous. That is 
good material philosophy, but it is neither very inspiring nor 
in the long run very satisfying. The worldly-wise old philan- 
thropist was not an idealist. He belonged to a century that 
did not greatly trouble itself about spiritual values; he was 
in temper a classicist and not a romanticist; he had the 
positive attitude of mind, the prosaic temperament, though 
happily reheved by humor, of the eighteenth century, that 
chilly, self-complacent period of prose and reason in literature. 
The spiritual element was not in him. The sturdiness and 
balance of his character, however, strongly appeal to the 
popular mind; and though he was lacking in those ideal qualities 
of sentiment and imagination which arouse the highest en- 
thusiasm, his honesty, his democratic simphcity, and his 
cool common sense, are virtues which command our respect 
^nd admiration. 



84 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



His Public Spirit. — Franklin was a many-sided man of large 
public spirit, or in the phrase of to-day, ''civic spirit." He 
was one of the leading scientists of his time in a city where 
interest in scientific study was acute, and his experiments in 
electricity made him world-famous. He knew a good deal 
about a great many things, and he turned that knowledge to 
practical account. His own city of Philadelphia owes him 
more than any other man for his manifold benefactions: he 
worked for a good police system, led in the movement for clean 




AN EARLY PRINTING PRESS 



streets, helped establish a public hospital and a public library, 
organized a fire department, invented a stove and generously 
declined to take out a patent for it, founded an academy which 
developed into the University of Pennsylvania, left money to 
the cities of Boston and Philadelphia for municipal improve- 
ments, and did many other useful things for his city and state. 
In his larger career as diplomat and statesman, his patriotic 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 85 

services at home and abroad were invaluable to this country in a 
critical stage. 

His Writings. — The collected works of Franklin fill ten large 
volumes, but only two of his works properly belong to litera- 
ture — the Autobiography and Poor Richard^ s Almanac, — though 
the ''Bagatelles/' or ''trifles," written in France, may be said 
to have literary value. The Autobiography was begun in 1771 
and discontinued in 1788, two years before the author's death; 
it extends only to 1757, but it covers the most interesting years 
in the making of a versatile man. In this work Franklin sets 
forth in a simple and frank manner the significant events and 
purposes of his life from his childhood to middle age — his 
early training, schemes for self -improvement, his first struggles - 
in Philadelphia, and his plans for public improvements in that 
city. The most famous passages are those on his efforts to 
form a good style, his love of standard books, and his entrance 
into Philadelphia. The last is presumably famihar to every 
reader of American biography. An extract from his account 
of how he learned to write, including his hterary models, is 
worth reproducing: 

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came 
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's 
Progress, my first collection was of John Banyan's works in separate 
little volumes . . . Plutarch's Lives there was in which I read 
abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There 
was also a book of Defoe's called An Essay on Projects, and another of 
Dr. Mather's, called Essays to Do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of 
thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of 
my life . . . 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was 
the third. 1 had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it 
over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the WTiting 
excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took 
some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiment in each 
sentence, laid them by a few days, and then without looking at the 
book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted 
sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any 



86 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Specta- 
tor with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. 
. . . I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after 
a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back 
again; I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, 
and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them to the best order, 
before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This 
was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing 
my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and 
amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in 
certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve 
the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might 
possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was 
extremely ambitious. 

Of all the books of the earlier periods of American literature 
Frankhn's Autobiography is the only one which is still popular, 
and it is likely that generations hence it will be read with the 
same general interest. The reason is not far to seek : the book 
is personal and human, a candid, common-sense record of a 
successful and versatile man's hfe in direct, simple language, 
seasoned with kindly humor and shrewd comment. It is one 
of the vital, concrete books, full of a man's self, and such works 
the world does not let die. Perhaps there is no other book in 
our literature which has made a more telhng appeal to young 
Americans in stimulating them to habits of industry and 
thrift; certainly it is the one work of Franklin that no young 
man should fail to read. 

In 1732 Frankhn began pubHshing Poor Richard^ s Almanac^ 
taking the name from that of a London almanac-maker, Richard 
Saunders, who becomes an oracle of practical wisdom. This 
almanac was issued for twenty-five years, and was immensely 
popular. There was no surer way of getting good advice 
before the people than in such a medium, for everybody bought 
and diligently read an almanac, and governed his conduct 
in part at least by its wise counsel on the weather, health, 
and things in general. A colonial household of Pennsylvania 
in the mid-eighteenth century no doubt regarded Poor Richard's 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



87 



Poor Richard, 173^. 



A N 



Almanack 

FortheYearofChrift 
Being the FIrft afrer LEAP YEAR: 



Almanac as a necessary article of mental and moral diet. And 
so Franklin fed them on proverbs like these: ''God helps them 
that help themselves"; ''One to-day is worth two to-morrows"; 
"Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee"; "Early to bed, 
and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise"; 
"The sleeping fox catches no 
poultry"; "Have you somewhat 
to do to-morrow, do it to-day"; 
"Three may keep a secret, if 
two of them are dead." Many 
of these sayings put into the 
mouth of "Poor Richard" 
were probably not original with 
Franklin — it is always difficult 
to trace a common maxim to its 
author — but he improved the 
phrasing of some and coined 
others outright ; he put everyday 
business principles into portable 
form. In 1757 he collected a 
large number of the proverbs 
and published them as the pre- 
face to the Almanac for 1758, 
under the title, "The Way to 
Wealth"; and this preface still 
has a wide circulation, being 
reprinted in various forms each 
year by savings banks and other 
organizations for stimulating 
the sense of economy. "The 

Way to Wealth" has, more than any other of his writings, given 
Franklin the reputation, particularly in Europe, of being a 
"typical American." 

Somewhat similar to the sayings of the Almanac are the 
"Bagatelles, "sketches composed by Franklin while living in 



574* 
5494 



By the Account of rhe Eaftem Crtttt 
Cy ihe Latin Chutch, whfii O enr. X 
By the Computation of TKft^. 
By the Reman Chronology 
By the Jtwijb B abbies 

IVherein is contained 
The Lunations, EcHpfcs, Jadgmcnt.of 
the WtaHier, Spripg Tidw, Pltnttt Motions 8c 
. mutual AfpeQj, Sun and Mooa'a Rifing »ad Set- 
ting, Length of Days, Ttme of High WacCT, 
Fairs. Coartt, and obfrrvable Otyt 
Fitted to the Latitude of Forty Degrees, 
and a Meridian of Five Hours Weft from ImJm, 
but may without fenfible Error, ferve all the ad- 
jacent Places, even from Net^foaadLad ro Statb- 



By RICHy^RD SAU^DBRS^f^^, 



^. PHILADBLPHIA: 

Printed tnd Mi bf B. FiLtNKUN, tr the Nev 
Printing Office near the Matker. 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC 
Title-page reduced 



88 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

France. Some of these are in the form of letters addressed to 
intimate friends in that country. The best known of the 
''Bagatelles" are the ''Story of the Whistle" and the "Dialogue 
between Franklin and the Gout," from the former of which we 
get the oft-quoted remark, "He has paid very dear for his 
whistle." The "Bagatelles" contain many wise aphorisms, 
though they seem less natural than the proverbs of Poor 
Richard's Almanac. 

Franklin's Literary Contribution. — Strictly speaking, Frank- 
lin w^as not a literary man, but a philosopher and statesman. 
The writings just considered have, however, certain qualities 
that belong to good literary prose — simplicity, clearness, humor, 
suggestiveness. He consciously, as we have seen, modeled his 
style on Addison, Bunyan, and Defoe; and indeed he assumed 
to be something of a literary critic, entertaining himself with an 
attempted improvement on the Book of Job. It is needless 
to say that in this he wasted his time and showed a lack of 
appreciation of the spirit and majestic speech of the Bible. 
The truth is, whenever Franklin ventured beyond the realm 
of the practical, he was no longer a master. He was a pruden- 
tial philosopher with his eyes on the useful; but his humor, his 
abiding common sense, and his intensely human quality save 
his writings from dullness. His style impresses the reader of 
to-day as essentially modern, and he is really the first familiar 
figure in our literature. 

John Woolman (1720-1772). — Very different in temperament 
and aims from Franklin was his contemporary, John Woolman, 
the New Jersey Quaker. He was a pure ideahst and something 
of a mystic; led by an "inner Hght," he became an itinerant 
preacher of various philanthropic reforms for children, laborers, 
and others, whose oppression and sufferings moved his gentle 
soul to pity; he established missions for the spread of the views 
of his sect and as centers of social service. Woolman was one 
of the earliest advocates in this country of such matters as our 
peace societies and labor organizations are now actively in- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 89 

terested in. To support himself simply, without serious 
interference with his preaching tours, he learned the trade of 
tailor. These tours extended along the Atlantic seaboard as 
far south as the Carolinas. Indeed he wandered far and wide, 
as the spirit moved him, journeying at last to England to work 
there among the Quakers, or Friends; at York he became a 
victim to the smallpox and died in that English city. 

The w^ork which entitles Woolman to be classed among our 
literary men — a rank this modest man would have been the 
first to disclaim — is the Journal, covering the last sixteen years 
of his life. It is a record of his labors and meditations, the 
spiritual nature of which, as well as the charm of his style and 
the secret of his own character, this sentence will reveal: ''We 
are taught by renewed experience to labor for an inward still- 
ness; at no time to seek for words, but to live in the spirit of 
truth, and utter that to the people which truth opened in us." 
Tw^o well-known writers, Charles Lamb and the poet Whittier, 
have paid tribute to the appeal of Woolman's Journal; the 
EngHshman, charmed by the quaint simphcity of the man 
and his book advises readers to ''get the writings of John Wool- 
man by heart"; the Quaker poet, admiring the peaceful creed 
and the strong anti-slavery sentiments of Woolman, speaks 
of "a sweetness as of violets" in his words. While the modern 
reader is unwilling to go so far in his praises, he is nevertheless 
genuinely attracted by the pure moral quality of the Journal, 
unique among the writings of the day. 

Poetry 

In the Revolutionary Period poetry consisted for the most 
part of political satire, patriotic verse, and a few lyrics on 
nature. Some of it is in the manner of the English satirists 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Butler, Dryden, 
and Pope; other verse shows the influence of Thomson, Gold- 
smith, Cowper, and Burns; the lyric poems suggest the con- 



90 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




PHILIP FRENEAU 

temporary Romantic poets across the sea, Wordsworth and 
Coleridge. The chief figure was Philip Freneau; there was, 
besides, a group of clever versifiers famous in their day, known 
as the * 'Hartford Wits,'^ three of whom — Trumbull, Dwight, 
and Barlow — may be briefly noticed. 

PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832) 



His Life. — Philip Freneau was born in New York City, but spent 
much of his life in New Jersey. He was educated at Princeton College, 
where he was the roommate and classmate of James Madison. Another 
classmate of Freneau was H. H. Brackenridge, a writer of some note. 
Freneau taught school for a while, and in 1775 went to the West Indies, 
where he remained for several years, wandering about in the islands and 
writing verses. Before coming to the West Indies, he had studied law 
and worked for a while on a Philadelphia newspaper; but he was restless, 
and the sea attracted him. After leaving the islands, he spent the next 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 91 

eight or ten years mostly on ships, visiting various parts of the world; 
in 1780 the boat on which he was a passenger was captured by the British, 
and he was confined for a time in the enemy's notorious prison ships in 
New York harbor. His sufferings furnished the theme of one of his 
bitterest satires. 

In 1790 Freneau married and turned again to editorial work for a 
livelihood. President Jefferson appointed him to ''the clerkship for 
foreign languages," a minor position in the Department of State. Along 
with his duties as translator for the government, he published the 
National Gazette in Philadelphia; but so indiscreetly did he attack the 
Federalists in his paper, that Jefferson was accused, though unjustly, 
of inciting a public official, appointed by himself, to assail his political 
enemies. Freneau was accordingly forced to give up his paper. His 
remaining years were spent partly in New York, where he undertook 
another newspaper venture, and partly at his farm near Mount Pleasant, 
N. J., where he issued on his own press an edition of his poems and 
published an almanac. Meanwhile he had taken another sea voyage, 
going as far as the Orient. He lived through the second war with Great 
Britain, and on into the settled years of our national period, dying in 
1832. Returning from a social gathering one winter's night, he lost his 
way in a furious storm and the next morning was found dead by the 
roadside. 

His Poetry. — Freneau wrote satires, patriotic verses, one or 
two poems of weird imaginative power, and a handful of lyrics 
on nature and the Indian. His political satires were written 
against the British in patriotic defense of the Revolutionary 
cause; the strongest of these is ''The British Prison Ship,'* in 
which he passionately denounces his tormentors in that floating 
jail. It is not these efforts, however, that commend the author 
to posterity, vigorous and clever though they are; by his 
shorter poems, rather, will this early national singer be re- 
membered. ''The House of Night," written in the West 
Indies, shows that fondness for the mysterious and the morbid 
which we later find in roe. This poem on the death of Death 
has some excellent stanzas, in spite of the ghostly gloom that 
pervades the dismal theme: 



92 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Sweet music can the fiercest pains assuage : 
She bids the soul to heaven's blest mansions rise; 
She calms despair, controls infernal rage; 
And deepest anguish, when it hears her, dies. 

O'er a dark field I held my dubious way. 

Where Jack-a-lanthorn walked his lonely round; 

Beneath my feet substantial darkness lay. 

And screams were heard from the distempered ground. 

Nor looked I back, till to a far-off wood, 
Trembling with fear, my weary feet had sped; 
Dark was the night, but at the enchanted dome 
I saw the infernal windows flaming red. 

Better than all this, indeed, are the little poems on nature and 
on the Indians, and those feehng verses on the brave soldiers 
who fell in the battle at Eutaw Springs, South Carolina. 
American subjects receive charming treatment in ^'The Wild 
Honeysuckle," 'To a Caty-did," 'To a Honey Bee,'' and 
''The Indian Burying Ground.'' Here we find for the first 
time that turning away from conventional themes to those 
mere distinctively American; and thus we have in Freneau a 
precursor of Bryant, Cooper and Simms, Longfellow and 
Lanier. He is the first writer to put the Indian into poetry, 
and he is the first to deal with nature in a spirit of rare and 
delicate sympathy. His is the most important name in 
American poetry before Bryant. Nor does it lessen the 
significance of Freneau's contribution to say that he owed much 
to Milton and Gray; there are doubtless echoes of these masters 
in many fines, but he was looking about him and choosing 
native subjects and making them at home in harmonious 
verse; and so in him there is heard a new note, there is per- 
ceived a new coloring. Such stanzas as these, for instance, are 
refreshing after the dreary versifying of the colonial period: 

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 
Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 93 

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, 
Unseen thy little bran(?hes greet: 

No roving foot shall crush thee here, 

No busy hand provoke a tear. 

From morning suns and evening dews 
At first thy little being came: 
If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
For when you die you are the same ; 

The space between is but an hour, 

The frail duration of a flower. 

—From "The Wild Honeysuckle." 

Here still a lofty rock remains, 

On which the curious eye may trace 
(Now wasted half by wearing rains) 

The fancies of a ruder race. 

By midnight moons,, o'er moistening dews, 

In habit for the chase arrayed. 
The hunter still the deer pursues, 

The hunter and the deer, a shade. 

— From ''The Indian Burying Ground." 

THE HARTFORD WITS 

A group of Connecticut men who devoted themselves during 
the Revolution and afterwards to the cultivation of literature, 
came to be known as the ^'Hartford Wits.'' The center of 
literary activity had, as we have seen, been transferred from 
Boston southward; about this time Hartford became a sort of 
hterary capital through the writing of a number of Yale 
graduates, who banded themselves together for the patriotic 
purpose of making a literature worthy of the young nation. 
The three leading spirits in this praiseworthy design were John 
Trumbull, Timothy D wight, and Joel Barlow. These gentle- 
men and their colleagues cultivated the Muses much in the 
fashion of the English classicists, of whom Pope was the 
acknowledged high-priest. 



94 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

John Trambull (1750-1831).— The name of John Trumbull, 
the most eminent of the ''Hartford Wits/' has all but faded 
from the modern mind, though for more than a generation he 
was highly esteemed both at home and abroad as a poetic 
genius. He was a wonderful child, being able to repeat 
volumes of verse when only a few years old and passing the 
Yale entrance examinations (quite elementary as compared 
with the present^ at the age of seven; he did not, however, 
enter college until he was thirteen. After his graduation he 
tutored at Yale, then studied law imder John Adams at Boston, 
and gave himself to politics and literature. Late in life he 
^'went west," and died in Detroit, Michigan, in 1831. 

Trumbull's most important work is McFingal, a burlesque 
epic after the manner of Butler's Hudihras, and so like its 
Enghsh prototype in places that quotations from it may easily 
be mistaken for lines from the English poem. McFingal 
celebrates in mock-heroic fashion an American Tory, who is 
tarred and feathered and fastened to a hberty pole for his 
speeches in the town-meeting in favor of the royahst cause. 
This is the most famous political satire of the Revolution. 
Its popularity may be judged from the fact that it ran through 
more than thirty editions. In 1776, the year of its appearance, 
the things of which it treats were of burning interest, and 
the clever hits went home; now we wonder why it had such a 
reputation, even though we admire the mental agility shown in 
the long cantos of jingling lines in rocking-horse meter. 

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817).— Another of the ''Hartford 
Wits" was Timothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards 
and college-mate of John Trumbull. After taking his degree 
at Yale he too was a tutor in his Alma Mater; then he served 
for a year as chaplain in the Continental army; after this he 
tried farming and teaching; he became pastor of a church at 
Greenfield, Connecticut, and in 1795 president of Yale, 
holding that position with distinction until his death. Early 
in his career Dwight projected an epic poem on a grand scale 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 95 

to be called The Conquest of Canaan. This he patiently 
wrought out in the ''heroic couplet" of the English classic 
school; it is indeed a credit to his industry, but it brings weari- 
ness of spirit to the reader. More pleasing is Greenfield Hill, a 
pastoral poem, in which are happy touches of local color — 
reflections of the life and landscape of a Connecticut village — 
reminding one of passages from Goldsmith and Thomson and 
other pioneer Romanticists. Two lyric poems keep Dwight's 
memory alive to-day — one the patriotic song composed while 
he was chaplain in the armj^, — 

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 

The queen of the world and child of the skies! 

and the other tne familiar hymn, a paraphrase of the hundred 
and thirty-seventh Psalm, — 

I love thy kingdom. Lord, 
The house of thine abode. 

Joel Barlow (1754-1812). — The most versatile of this trio 
of wits was Joel Barlow, who also graduated at Yale College 
and forthwith grew ambitious to immortalize himself and his 
country in a huge poem. But along with his making of verse 
he did a great many other things: he practised law, edited a 
newspaper and a hymnbook, kept a bookstore, was agent in 
Paris for a western land company, was United States consul 
in Algiers, and minister to France. His longest production, 
The Columhiad, an epic poem in ten books, is an enlargement 
of his earher * ^Vision of Columbus," in which the discoverer is 
taken by an angel from prison to a lofty height from which he 
beholds in vision the future greatness of America. The 
Columhiad has long ago suffered respectable literary burial, but 
Barlow's mock-heroic poem, ''Hasty Pudding,'^ composed in 
France and dedicated to Martha Washington, is still alive 
and well worth reading, as the following lines may show; 



96 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Come, dear bowl, 
Glide o'er my palate and inspire my soul. 
The milk beside thee smoking from the kine, 
Its substance mingled, married with thine, 
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, 
And save the pains of blowing while I eat. 
Oh, could the smoi,, n^e emblematic song 
Flow like thy genial juiq ^^rO'er my tongue, 
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, 
And as they roll in substance roll in rhyme, 
No more thy awkward unpoetic name 
Should shun the Muse or prejudice thy fame, 
But rising grateful to th' accustomed ear. 
All bards should catch it and all realms revere. 

Patriotic Ballads. — Large numbers of songs were written 
during the Revolution. Some of these are mere doggerel, 
without any literary quality; others ceased to be interesting 
after the heat and passion of the great conflict had passed 
away; a few touch the deeper chords of emotion and are vital 
still. In general, our revolutionary lyrics lack the spontaneous 
simplicity of genuine ballads, such as the old English folk-songs, 
being more or less imitative and artificial, as was nearly all the 
poetry of the later eighteenth century; some are parodies or 
burlesques, adapted to the tune of ''Yankee Doodle.'' Mention 
has already been made of Francis Hopkinson's ''Battle of the 
Kegs" and Joseph Hopkinson's "Hail Columbia," two of the 
best known poems inspired by the Revolution. Other songs 
are "Bold Hathorne," Dickinson's "Liberty Song," "Virginia 
Banishing Tea" (by "a young woman of Virginia"), "The 
Yankee's Return from Camp," and "Volunteer Boys." Many 
of these songs are anonymous. Of all the ballads of that time 
the one of highest poetic quality is "Nathan Hale," or "Hale 
in the Bush," which has a tender, haunting melody; it begins: 

The breezes went steadily through the tall pines, 
A-saying ''oh! hu-ush!" a-saying "oh! hu-ush!" 

As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse 
For Hale in the bush, for Hale in the bush. 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 97 

"Keep still!" said the thrush as she nestled her young 
la a nest by the road, in a nest by the road; 

'Tor the tyrants are near, and with them appear 
What bodes us no good, what bodes us no good." 

During our second war with Great Britain, known as the ''War 
of 1812," the most noted so^ ,vas, of course, ''The Star- 
Spangled Banner" (1814) b^ jVancis Scott Key, of Maryland, 
composed as he saw the American flag still floating on Fort 
McHenry the morning after the British attack. 

Prose Fiction 

The few novels, or romances, written in America during the 
Revolutionary Period reflect the more marked characteristics 
of eighteenth century English novels. The novel proper — 
that is, a picture of actual life under more or less familiar con- 
ditions — began with Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), whose 
Pamela (1740) is usually regarded as the first modern novel. 
His greatest work is Clarissa Harlowe. Richardson was 
something of a sentimentalist, but his great contemporary, 
Henry Fielding (1707-1754), whose masterpiece is Tom Jones j 
was more of a realist, depicting men and manners in a broadly 
human way. These two Englishmen were the fathers of the 
novel; following them were several writers of fantastic stories, 
full of mystery and horror, which came to be known as "Gothic" 
romances. They were in marked contrast to the realistic 
novels of Richardson and Fielding, which, true to the spirit 
of the earlier eighteenth century, had something of "classic" 
restraint. The word "Gothic" stood for the distinctly imagina- 
tive in literature, just as Gothic architecture was more elaborate, 
more decorated, than the severer classic; in poetry and fiction 
"Gothic" meant highly romantic. In 1764 Horace Walpole 
wrote The Castle of Otranto, a wildly impossible romance; 
toward the end of the century Mrs. Anne Radcliffe published 
The Mysteries of Udolpho, sl story abounding in strange. 



98 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

unearthly sights and sounds. These and other similar pro- 
ductions in the prose fiction of the time show the influence of 
the Romantic movement, already mentioned. 

The first American novelist of note was Charles Brockden 
Brown, in whose writings are reflected the traits of the ' 'Gothic" 
romances, so popular in England when he grew up. Before 
Brown, however, several novels had been written in America 
which, by their sentimental, moralizing tone, plainly reveal 
their debt to Richardson. Among these were Mrs. Sarah 
Morton's The Power of Sympathy (1789) and Mrs. Rowson's 
Charlotte Temple (1790). But in a new and vigorous country, 
where the strenuous pioneer-life left little time for idle dream- 
ing, novels of soft sentiment would naturally find less place 
than romances of adventure; and so we find that the earliest 
American stories are, in spite of their imitative character, 
tinged with local color. The late beginning of prose fiction 
in this country is of course due in the main to the hostile 
attitude of the Puritans, and indeed of many others besides, to 
novels of all kinds as demoralizing. By the first years of the 
nineteenth century, however, this feeling had sufficiently 
changed and, moreover, the national life had become suflficiently 
settled, for the work of the novelist to win approval, if not hearty 
applause. At this stage appeared a writer of romances, Charles 
Brockden Brown, the forerunner of Cooper, Hawthorne, and 
Poe. 

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN (1771-1810) 

His Life. — Charles Brockden Brown was born in Philadelphia in 1771 
of Quaker ancestry. A delicate constitution prevented any very long or 
systematic attendance at school, but the boy was fond of books and read 
widely and steadily; he early began to write verses and sketches and to 
show a preference for that romantic form of literature which appeared 
in the English fiction of the time. He was shy, retiring, and given to 
solitary walks and to morbid reflection. The latter was no doubt 
intensified by his ill-health. Though he studied law, he never practised, 
resolving, in spite of the opposition of his kindred, to give himself to 
literature. He went to New York, formed friendships with several 



REVOLUTIONARy PERIOD 99 




CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN 

congenial literary men, and established the Monthly Magazine and 
American RegisteVy which lived a year. In that city between the years 
1798 and 1801 he wrote and published six novels. After his return to 
Philadelphia, he edited for five years the Literary Magazine and American 
Register; from 1806 to his death he was editor of the American Register. 
'Besides this, Brown did various kinds of hackwork in order to support 
himself; for the profession of letters was then even more precarious than 
it is now. At the age of thirty-nine, after a life-long struggle with 
disease, the novelist died in his native city. 

His Novels. — Of the six novels, or romances, of Charles 
Brockd^n Brown, the most important are Wieland, Ormond, 
Arthur Mervyn, and Edgar Huntly, Wieland, or The Trans- 
formation, is a story about the dreadful effect of a mysterious 
voice upon a respectable man in Pennsylvania, who is driven 
to murder his family in obedience to what he believes to be 



100 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a divine command. The voice turns out to be that of a 
malicious ventriloquist. The deluded man dies a victim to 
madness and remorse. Much space in the novel is given to a 
discussion of ventriloquism, spontaneous combustion, and the 
elixir of life, themes which strongly appealed to the creepy 
imagination of that age. Ormond and Arthur Mervyn are 
interesting to-day chiefly because of the vivid pictures they 
contain of the yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. 
The plots are concerned with the deception of trusting maidens 
by, attractive libertines, as in British models of the day Hke 
Godwin's Caleb Williams, and are over-wrought and generally 
unnatural; but the ghastly accounts of scenes in the plague- 
stricken city and the sufferings of yellow-fever victims are 
horribly reahstic. In reading these descriptions, one is re- 
minded of Defoe's account of the plague in London, though 
Brown's portrayal of conditions in the American city in that 
fearful epidemic year of 1793 is invested with more of weirdness 
and horror. 

Of all his novels Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker ^ 
is most distinctively American, for in this story Brown 
introduces the Indians and the wonders of the primeval forest. 
The scene is in eastern Pennyslvania; here in a mountainous 
region, Huntly supphes food to an accused murderer. This 
Huntly happens to be a sleep-walker, though he does not know 
it. One night he awakens in a cave, all covered with bruises and 
half-starved, and climbing out looks straight into a panther's 
eyes gleaming in the darkness. He brains the beast with his 
tomahawk and makes a meal on it. At the mouth of the cave 
he comes upon several Indians with a captive white girl in the 
midst of them; he kills the sentinel, rescues the girl and takes 
her to a cabin, and slays the pursuing savages. Incidents like 
this are far more appealing to the reader than the plot proper 
with its morbid analysis of murders and madness. Over- 
strained as these adventures among the Indians are, they 
nevertheless afford the first romantic insight into the possi- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 101 

bilities of a theme which Cooper was soon to seize upon with 
marked success. 

The plot of any typical novel by Brown is loose, consisting 
of a series of incidents strung together as the strange adventures 
of one person. As the name indicates, each is a one-man novel 
in which the hero contends with some uncanny and semi- 
occult force — ventriloquism, an epidemic, somnambulism. The 
story is told either in letter form or in direct narrative by the 
principal character. The atmosphere is melancholy, as in 
the Gothic romances of the day in England; the mysterious 
and the terrible invest the pages hke a pall, and the novehst's 
attempts to explain the puzzles are generally unsatisfactory 
as well as crudely inartistic. BroTvn, at his best, is as reahstic 
as Defoe, but he is distinctly inferior to Hawthorne and Poe 
in the handling of his somber material; the gloom is unrelieved 
by the subtle poetic suggestiveness of these later masters; 
the weirdness lacks the softening effect which Hawthorne 
gained by dealing with a romantic past and Poe by detaching 
his scenes from local and famihar backgrounds. Brown 
boldly and, as he himself says, with deliberate purpose, laid 
his scenes in a definite American locality of his ot\ti time; and 
accordingly, while there is something incongruous about 
^'Gothic" horrors in a Pennsylvania setting, we have at least 
the display of a vigorous imagination and good patches of 
local color. 

Charles Brockden Bro^ni was our first professional man of 
letters; his time and energy he gave entirely to literary effort; 
this, apart from the considerable merits of his works, entitles 
him to remembrance. His novels attracted the favorable 
comment cf Sir Walter Scott and the poet Shelley; in his own 
generation these stories were wddely read, and even in this day 
of innumerable novels they have not altogether lost their 
appeal to the imaginative reader. In these pioneer romances 
we find a vivid picture of an American city in time of a great 
epidemic, the atmosphere of the primeval forest, and the 



102 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

American Indian first introduced into our fiction. Brown is 
therefore a predecessor of Cooper and Simms. 

Other Writers of the Period. — Besides the writers already considered, 
there are a few names which, in so brief a work as this, can only be 
mentioned in passing, with a word or two of comment. 

In the South were the following: Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, 
president of the Continental Congress and a peace commissioner between 
America and Great Britain, whose Narrative of his Confinement in the 
Tower of London (1782) is an exceedingly readable journal; David Ramsay, 
a patriotic physician of Charleston, South Carolina, who wrote a History 
of the American Revolution and a History of South Carolina, and other 
historical works; John Marshall, of Virginia, the great jurist, who 
wrote an able and elaborate Life of Washington (1807); ^Tarson" Weems, 
of Virginia, an interesting and imaginative biographer, in whose Life of 
Washington we find the ''cherry-tree incident"; Willl^m Wirt, whose 
Life of Patrick Henry (1817) is one of the most entertaining biographies 
in our literature, and in whose Letters of the British Spy (1803) we find 
the famous description of ''the blind preacher"; St. George Tucker, of 
Virginia, lawyer and poet, whose "Resignation, or Days of My Youth," 
is one of the most pleasing lyrics of the time; and Hugh Henry Bracken- 
ridge, of Maryland and Pennsylvania, author of a poetical drama. The 
Battle of Bunker Hill (1776), and a prose satire. Modern Chivalry, which 
was immensely popular in its day. This burlesque which has been called 
a "Western Don Quixote," is about the adventures of Captain Farrago 
and his Irish servant, Teague O'Regan, and illustrates the mental 
cleverness of Brackenridge, who was preacher, politician, editor, jurist, 
and satirist. 

In the North, besides those already discussed, we find the following 
writers : Mercy Otis Warren, sister of James Otis and an interesting and 
accomplished woman, whose dramatic poems, satires, and History of the 
American Revolution j were once much admired; Joseph Dennie, author of 
a series of essays entitled The Lay Preacher and editor of The Portfolio, 
established in Philadelphia (1801); Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, 
orator and essayist; Robert Treat Paine, of Boston, author of The 
Ruling Passion and other poems; Royall Tyler, also of Massachusetts, 
writer of comedies, one of which. The Contrast (1790), made a decided hit, 
and of a romance of adventure, The Algerine Captive; and William Dun- 
lap, of New York, artist and author, who wrote several comedies and 
tragedies, among which the historical drama, Andre, is the most im- 
portant. Dunlap also wrote a valuable history of the American stage 
and an interesting life of his friend, Charles Brockden Brown, the novelist 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
THE PERIOD IN OUTLINE (1765-1815) 



103 



LITERATURE 



Prose 



Oratory: James Otis, Samuel 
Adams, Richard Henry Lee, 
Patrick Henry 

Political Essays: John Adams, 
Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamil- 
ton, James Madison, Thomas 
Jefferson 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): 
Autobiography, Poor Richard's 
Almanac 

John Woolman's Journal 

Charles Brockden Brown (1771- 
1810) : Wieland, Edgar Huntly, 
etc. First important novelist 
and first professional man of 
letters in America 

Poetry 

Philip Freneau (1752-1832) : Eutaw 
Springs, Indian Burying Ground, 
Wild Honeysuckle, etc. First 
important American poet 

Hartford Wits: Trumbull, Dwight, 
Barlow 

Patriotic Songs and Ballads: Hail 
Columbia, Hale in the Bush, 
Star-Spangled Banner 



HISTORY 

British Stamp Act passed, 1765 

First Continental Congress, Phila- 
delphia, 1774 

Henry's "Give me liberty or give 
me death" speech, 1775 

Battles of Lexington and Bunker 
Hill, 1775 

Declaration of Independence, 1776 

Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781 

Treaty of Paris (Peace between 
Great Britain and United 
States), 1783 

Adoption of Constitution of United 
States, 1787 

Washington inaugurated first Pres^ 

ident, 1789 
Whitney Invents Cotton Gin, 179S 
Purchase of Louisiana Territory^ 

1803 
Lewis and Clarke Expedition tf 

West, 1804 
Fulton's Steamboat on Hudson, 

1807 
Second War with Great Britain, 

1812-'15 



Patriotic Oratory and Political Essay; the Beginnings of a Nationa 
Literature; Poems and Novels on American scenes and Indians. 



SOME USEFUL BOOKS 
Historical. — Fiske's American Revolution and Critical Period of 
American History, Hart's Formation of the Union, Walker's The Making 



104 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of the Nation, Fisher's Struggle for American Independence, "American 
Statesmen" series of biographies. 

Literary. — Tyler's Literary History of the American Revolution 
(Putnam), Sears's American Literature in the Colonial and National 
Periods, Loshe's The Early American Novel, Cairns's Early American 
Writers (Macmillan), Trent's Southern Writers (Macmillan), Marble's 
Heralds of American Literature (University Chicago Press). 

Selections from the writers mentioned in the text may be found in 
Cairns's, Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature 
(vols. II, III, IV), Carpenter's American Prose (Macmillan), Library of 
Oratory (vol. Ill), The World's Famous Orators (vol. VIII), Steven- 
son's Poems of American History (Houghton), Moore's Songs and Ballads 
of the American Revolution, Eggleston's American War Ballads. 

SociaL — Scudder's IMen and Manners in America One Hundred Years 
Ago, Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times (Scribners), Green's 
Pioneer Mothers of America, Cooper's The Spy and The Pilot, Kennedy's 
Horse-Shoe Robinson, Simms's The Scout and The Partisan, Ford's 
Janice Meredith, Mitchell's Hugh Wjune, Churchill's Richard Carvel, 
Mary Johnston's Lewis Rand, Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes. 



CHAPTER THREE 
THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 

National Expansion. — The second war with Great Britain 
ended in 1815, and the stabihty of the American repubhc 
was assured. Now began a period of remarkable national 
expansion. In 1819 the great region of Florida was purchased 
from Spain. To the original thirteen states as many more 
had been added by 1837; the great West had been explored 
and was now being settled; the influx of foreign immigration 
had begun; the older towns of the eastern part of the country 
were becoming large cities, and along the rivers and lakes 
farther west towns and forts were dotting the wilderness. 
Within the thirty years from 1810 to 1840 the population had 
grown from about seven to seventeen miUions. This material 
advancement was immensely stimulated by important inven- 
tions which increased the means of transportation and thus 
bound the different sections of the country together indus- 
trially. In 1807 Fulton launched his steamboat on the Hudson; 
the first railroad in America was in operation in 1830; a few 
years later Morse put up his telegraph wires. Meanwhile 
the Erie Canal had been opened and many government roads 
had been built. The American people were busy at their 
tasks of national development. The frontiers were pushed 
farther back, and the Indian steadily yielded possession, after 
fierce and bloody conflict, to the advancing ''pale face." For 
the first twenty-five years of the new century Virginians sat 
in the presidential chair and her statesmen had the largest 
share in shaping the policies of the young nation. 

New York Becomes a Literary Center. — In the Colonial 
Period, as we have seen, the literary leadership belonged to 
Boston; later, Philadelphia became the intellectual center, 

[105] 



106 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

gaining prestige from the writings of Benjamin Franklin and 
Charles Brockden Brown; during the second and third decades 
of the nineteenth century New York came into prominence as 
a literary center. This primacy in letters was due to the activity 
of the ''Knickerbocker Group/' so named in honor of the old 
Dutch settlers of New York, or Manhattan, whom Irving 
delightfully depicted in his humorous Knickerbocker's History 
of New York, published in 1809. These "v\Titers formed a 
congenial society, and by their steadfast devotion to their 
art did much toward reUeving American hterature of the 
charge of provincialism. In 1820 Sidney Smith, the witty 
Englishman, ironically asked, ''Who reads an American book?'' 
A few years later there was no point in such a question, for 
the works of Irving and Cooper were popular in Europe. The 
three great names of the Knickerbocker Group are Washington 
Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant; 
the minor writers are the poets, Paulding, Halleck, Drake, 
Dana, and Wilhs. Before considering these, however, it will 
be well to glance briefly at the English literature of the day, 
the influence of which was felt in varying degrees on this side 
of the Atlantic. 

Contemporary English Literature. — For the first twenty- 
five years of the century the Romantic School of writers flour- 
ished in all their glory in England. The poets were Words- 
worth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge; nature, medieval 
and oriental romance, lowly Ufe, childhood, mystic visions of 
human brotherhood and social redemption, were some of the 
themes of their songs. Emotion and imagination were restored 
to their rightful places in English poetry. In widespread 
popularity the greatest name of the period was Sir Walter 
Scott, ''Wizard of the North,'' whose novels affected American 
literature more perceptibly than his poetry did. The first 
of these great romances, Waverley, was pubHshed in 1814, 
and from that time until his death in 1832 Sir Walter Scott 
wielded the power of an enchanter in the EngHsh-speaking 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 107 

world. Irving and Cooper show traces of his influence. To 
the works of Wordsworth and Byron the poets of the New 
York group are more or less indebted; for while their best 
utterances have an American flavor refreshing in its newness, 
the manner and the subject matter are at times unmistakably 
reminiscent of the great English Romantic poets. The influence 
of the English essayists of the period, Lamb and DeQuincey, 
is less perceptible in our early national prose; indeed, it seems 
that the eighteenth century masters, Addison and Goldsmith, 
are more clearly reflected in our first standard American prose 
writer, Washington Irving. As we study the lives and works 
of this first national group of literary Americans, however, 
we shall find how futile it is to attempt to ''explain'^ genius 
by stressing outside influences. 

WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859) 

His Life. — Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783, the 
son of a Scotch father and an English mother. His father, a prosperous 
hardware merchant, had a good library and in this the boy browsed 
at his will. He was fond of the theater, and he managed to see many 
plays in spite of the paternal disapproval of such vanities; both in his 
liking for the theater and for books of romance, it was no doubt his 
mother who mainly supported him. Being somewhat frail, young Irving 
did not attend Columbia College as did his brothers, but spent his time 
reading or exploring the region about his native city and along the 
Hudson, which he was one day to make famous. His schooling was 
therefore irregular, but what he missed in formal training he made up 
in knowledge gained from unusually wide reading. He studied law but 
did not find it to his taste and, though admitted to the bar, did not 
practise. Fond of pleasure, he was a welcome guest at social gatherings; 
and a lover of literature, he early tried his hand at writing letters for 
a local paper in the manner of Addison's Spectator and Goldsmith's 
Citizen of the World. Later, in connection with one of his brothers and 
James K. Paulding, he published a semi-monthly periodical called 
Salmagundi} made up of sketches and essays in the Addisonian fashion. 
Meanwhile, he had spent nearly two years in Europe for his health. 



^A medie^, or poisc^U^oeQus collection; originally, a dish ol v^ous ingredientgt 



108 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In 1809 Matilda Hoffman, the young lady to whom Irving was engaged, 
died; as a means of distraction, he worked steadily at his Knickerbocker's 
History of New York, already begun, and published it in December of 
the same year. To the memory of this beautiful young woman, whose 
death was his one great sorrow, he remained true through the rest of 
his long life. 

For several years Irving' s plans were somewhat unsettled: he cared 
little for law, and the hardware business of his brothers did not offer 
very congenial employment; finally, however, he decided to become a 
partner in the firm. He was the traveling member, representing their 
interests in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington; in these cities 
he was a popular social figure. During the War of 1812 he was a military 
secretary and governor's aid. In 1815 he went to England to look after 
the interests of the firm and to visit his brother. The visit, planned 
for a few months, lasted seventeen years. The firm of Irving Brothers 
failed in 1818, and Washington Irving decided to devote himself to 
literature. In these seventeen years of foreign residence he wrote the 
greater part of his books, visited Sir Walter Scott and other eminent 
literary men, held a position with the American embassy at Madrid, 
and acted as secretary of the American legation at London. He went 
to Spain upon the invitation of the American minister to aid in trans- 
lating certain historical documents from the journals of Columbus; 
the romance of Spanish history and legend made a strong appeal to 
him and furnished material for several works. In England he was honored 
with a medal by the Royal Society of Literature and the degree of 
Doctor of Civil Law by the University of Oxford. 

Irving returned to Americain 1832, rich in honors and in the affections 
of his countrymen. A public banquet was given him by the city of 
New York, and a toast was drunk to his fame as ^'the Dutch Herodotus, 
Diedrich Knickerbocker," in humorous recognition of his first impor- 
tant work years before. After a tour of the South and the West, 
Irving settled down at his newly purchased estate, Sunnyside, near 
Tarrytown on the Hudson, once owned by a Dutch family, the Van 
Tassels. Ten years later (1842) he was appointed Minister to Spain, 
and held the position until 1846. At Sunnyside he spent in literary 
work and in charming social intercourse the remaining years of his life, 
surrounded by his youthful nieces and congenial friends. Irving died 
in 1859, and was buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery near Sunnyside. 

His Personality. — A lovable, genial, companionable man 
was Washington Irving, according to those who knew him 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 109 




WASHINGTON IRVING 



110 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



well, winning friends wherever he went by his cordial manners. 
''His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up his whole face 
and rendering it very attractive," says a relative of his. ''There 
was a chirping, cheery, old-school air in his appearance,'* 
says George WilHam Curtis. *'He seemed, indeed, to have 
stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor 
of his address, if he stopped for a passing chat, were delight- 
fully characteristic. He was simply free from all self-con- 
sciousness and assumption and dogmatism. '* Of his own 




SUNNYSIDE 

Irving's Home on the Hudson River 



gentle art he said: "I have never found in anything outside 
of the four walls of my study any enjoyment equal to sitting 
at my writing desk, with a clean page, a new theme, and a 
mind wide awake." Singular purity of character, something 
of old-fashioned sentiment in his chivalric regard for woman- 
hood, a humor seasoned with a grain of shrewdness, wide human 
sympathy, — these suggest themselves to the reader of Irving's 
works as belonging to the man, ''God bless him!" exclaimed 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 111 

Byron in a rare burst of admiration, ^'he is a genius; and he 
has something better than genius — a heart." 

His Works. — The works of Irving fall into two general 
groups: (1) Sketches and Tales ; (2) Biographies and Histories. 

In the first group, exclusive of his earher essays in the Gold- 
smith and Addison manner — the Oldstyle Papers and Salma- 
gundi, immature performances, — are the Sketch Book, Brace- 
bridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, The Alhambra, and a volume 
or two of travels in the western part of the United States. 
To the second group belong the Life of Columbus, The Conquest 
of Granada^ Life of Goldsmith, Mahomet and his Successors, 
and Life of Washington. Belonging in strictness to neither 
of these groups, though more nearly akin to the first, is the 
burlesque Knickerbocker's History of New York, Irving's 
first important contribution to literature. 

Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809) purports to 
be an account of the Dutch settlement and rule of New York 
(New Amsterdam), from the time of Henry. Hudson (1609) to 
the Enghsh occupation in 1664, by one Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker, a descendant of the old Dutch famihes. This fictitious 
person, it was pretended, had mysteriously disappeared from 
New York leaving a manuscript, the publication of which — so 
the clever newspaper advertisements of the forthcoming book 
assured the pubhc — ^would be undertaken to pay certain debts 
of the eccentric author. The curiosity of the pubhc was thus 
aroused and the book had a large sale; it was soon known, 
however, that Irving was the real author. He began the 
book, indeed, as a parody on an exceedingly dull and pedantic 
history of New York which had appeared two years before, 
but became so deeply interested in the undertaking that he 
soon set dihgently to work to reproduce in an amusing form 
the earher traditions of his native city. The result was a comio 
history of New York ''from the beginning of the world to the 
end of the Dutch dynasty.'^ The work is a compound of fact 
and fiction, subtle humor and broad burlesque; the Dutch 



112 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

governors mentioned are historical characters, but the sketches 
of them by Irving are dehghtful pieces of imaginative portrai- 
ture. The description of Governor Wouter Van Twiller has 
become classic: 

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from 
a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away 
their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; 
and who had comported themselves with such singular wdsdom and 
propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of — which, next 
to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of 
all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite ways by which 
some men make a figure in the world: one by talking faster than they 
think, and the other, by holding their tongues and never thinking at all. 
By the first, many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of 
quick parts; by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest 
of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the 
way, is a casual remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it 
thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man 
shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in mono- 
syllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So 
invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even 
to smile through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, 
if a joke were uttered in his presence, that set light-minded hearers 
in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. . . 

With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. 
His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his 
ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not 
room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain 
it is, that, if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary 
mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, 
mj^sterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in pro- 
found silence, and at length observe, that he 'had his doubts about the 
matter'; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and 
not easily imposed upon. His habits were as regular as his person. He 
daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; 
he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve 
of the twenty-four. 

This sort of satire, though comparatively stingless, offended 
some of the worthy Dutchman's descendants, who on such a 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 113 

subject were unduly sensitive; in England the humor of it 
all was greatly applauded, Sir Walter Scott declaring that his 
*'sides were absolutely sore with laughing/' Indeed, Knicker- 
bocker's History of New York was the first American book 
to receive wide attention abroad, and its popularity has deserv- 
edly continued, in spite of the greater fame of Irving's next 
work, the Sketch Book. 

Sketches and Tales. The Sketch Book (1819) was written 
in England, published in New York and Philadelphia in parts, 
then brought out in England in two volumes by Murray, 
the famous pubhsher, upon the recommendation of Sir Walter 
Scott. As soon as the public read the first part, which con- 
tained *'Rip Van Winkle," they clamored for more; on both 
sides of the Atlantic so favorable was the reception, that the 
author's reputation was estabhshed in two continents. The 
book was an open sesame for Irving to the homes and hearts 
of men of letters in England and, indeed, of readers every- 
where. The pictures of English country life more clearly 
revealed England to America and endeared the writer to the 
older country, while the purely American scenes charmed 
European readers and surprised the people at home, who were 
not aware of the wealth of literary material so close at hand. 

Of all the sketches and tales in the collection two have found 
the most abiding favor, ''Rip Van Winkle" and 'The Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow"; it would hardly be too much to say that 
these two stories have kept the Sketch Book alive, have floated 
it, so to speak, on the popular current. Other sketches — ''The 
Wife," "The Broken Heart," ''Little Britain," "Christmas 
Eve," "Westminster Abbey," — charm the cultivated reader 
by their old-time sentiment and their style; "The Spectre 
Bridegroom" is a little too "Gothic" for most modern readers; 
but Rip's strange experiences with Henry Hudson's queer 
dwarfs and Ichabod Crane's troubled courtship of Katrina 
Van Tassel are sufficiently thrilling and human to divert a 
generation brought up on highly spiced literary food. Besides^ 



114 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

these two stories deal with American material, the "Knicker- 
bocker'^ and Hudson legends, and their setting involves the 
Catskills and the majestic river up which the Dutch navigator 
sailed. In the Sketch Book, then, the world found fresh matter 
and an altogether dehghtful manner; the author's fame and 
fortune were accordingly secure. The demand for more of 
such entertainment led him to continue this kind of writing. 

Bracehridge Hall (1822) and Tales of a Traveller (1824) are 
of the same general nature as the Sketch Book, but somewhat 
inferior in vitality. In Bracehridge Hall there is a thin thread 
of story on which are strung little incidents and bits of de- 
scription, the most clever of which are perhaps ''The Stout 
Gentleman" and ''Dolph Heyliger." Some of Irving's' best 
writing is found in the Tales of a Traveller, but it lacks as a 
whole the freshness of the Sketch Book; then, too, it deals with 
continental scenes, with the spirit of which the author was not 
entirely familiar and in which his readers were not deeply 
interested. By the time he had finished this third book of 
sketches, he had about exhausted the vein. Fortunately for 
him and for his readers as well, whose name was legion, a 
new field opened when he went to Spain in 1826. 

The romantic past of Spain made a strong appeal to Irving, 
and for three years he reveled in the records and ruins of her 
vanished glories. Around the Alhambra, the old Moorish 
palace of Granada, his imagination played; he actually lived 
in it for a while, and under the spell of it he wrote another 
volume of sketches. The Alhambra (1832) has been aptly 
called ''the Spanish Sketch Book." It is the most poetic of 
Irving's books: visions of departed splendors came to this 
American as he sat musing in his little balcony, and he peopled 
every court and tower with beings whom his fancy revived 
out of the old legends; around each incident in the quaint 
city of Granada, about each pretty face or striking figure, 
he wove some romantic story; and looking out upon the moonlit 
gardens he dreamed, until the place became one of enchantment 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 115 

and he could see fairy forms through the trees and hear faint 
whisperings of love. And yet he so mingles fact and fancy in 
these pictures, that The Alhambra is realistic as well as romantic, 
reflecting the hfe of all that region and making for the traveler 
of to-day an admirable guidebook. 

In addition to the volumes of sketches and tales already 
mentioned, Irving wrote several works of minor importance 
on his observations while making an extensive trip through 
the newly-opened West after his return from Europe in 1832. 
These papers, first called A Tour on the Prairies, were later 
pubhshed with additions as the Crayon Miscellany (1835). 
Two other works belong to this period, the Astoria and the 
Adventures of Captain Bonneville. The Astoria was under- 
taken at the request of John Jacob Astor, who prevailed 
upon Irving to write a readable history of certain mercantile 
ventures which Astor was making on the Pacific coast. The 
clerical part of this work appears to have been done by Irving's 
nephew, Pierre Irving. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville 
relate the western experiences of an adventurer of that name 
whom Irving had met while he was preparing the Astoria. 
These exploits had already been written out by Captain Bonne- 
ville; Irving retouched them, after buying the manuscript, 
and pubUshed the work as a commercial venture. Compared 
with his other sketches these papers are little more than clever 
hackwork. 

Biographies and Histories. Irving's first book on a Spanish 
theme was the Life of Columbus (1828). The career and per- 
sonality of the great discoverer had always interested him, 
and when he began to read in earnest the old Spanish chronicles 
which he had gone to Spain to translate, he decided to write 
a biography of his hero. He had the energy to make a careful 
study of the musty documents bearing on the life of Columbus, 
and so he gained substantial accuracy; but what, for literary 
purposes, is still more important, he possessed the imagination 
to recoustruct the past and make his chief character a living 



116 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

reality. Of the Life of Columbus Irving said that it had cost 
him more toil and trouble ttian all his other productions. The 
work is in the main trustworthy as history, but it is still more 
noteworthy for its vivid and sympathetic portrayal of the 
splendid dreamer who discovered a continent. 

The Conquest of Granada (1829) is an account by an im- 
aginary monk, Fray Agapida, in chronicle form, of the con- 
flicts between the Moors and the Spaniards centering about 
the old Moorish stronghold of Granada, which fell after a ten 
years' struggle, in 1492. It is a book of fascinating pictures 
of combats, tournaments, sieges, cavalcades, and gorgeous 
processions, in which the romantic figures of Ferdinand and 
Isabella are prominent. In the brilliant descriptions is the 
mingled coloring of Spanish chivalry and Oriental pageantry. 
It is more like a moving masquerade in a medieval carnival 
than a deadly war between the partisans of the Cross and the 
fanatics of the Crescent. Such a theme was thoroughly con- 
genial to Irving, who is said to have regarded The Conquest 
of Granada as the best of his works, though agreeing with the 
critics that the device of relating the story through the mouth 
of the fictitious Fray Agapida was a mistake. 

The Life of Goldsmith (1849) is the most interesting of the 
later works of Irving. It was rather hastily written and can 
lay no great claim to originality, but it is a charming biog- 
raphy of a man with whom his American admirer had much 
of sympathy. The gentle humor, the Bohemian temperament, 
and the unfailing cheerfuLuess of Goldsmith appealed to Irving, 
who, though not himself a true Bohemian, had such inclina- 
tions at least; and as for the Englishman's other quahties — to 
say nothing of his dehghtful style — it is easy to see that they 
are Irving's also. Generations of readers have come to know 
the English essayist and poet through this biography, which 
keeps its popularity among famous American classics. Irving's 
Ldfe of Goldsynith is one of the books which every boy and girl 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 117 

should read; it is as entertaining as a novel, and in its genial 
human quality it is genuinely wholesome. 

Mahoviet and his Successors (1849) is a popular history of 
Mohammedanism, written in Irving's usual pleasing stjde, 
but it is the least vital of the author's histories. The subject 
was not one with which he was fitted either by temperament 
or training to deal successfully; the work is therefore distinctly 
inferior to the other biographies. 

The last of the works of Irving, and the one on which he 
bestowed long and loving care, is the Life of Washington 
(1855-'59) originally pubhshed in five volumes. It is an elaborate 
and painstaking study of Washington and the American 
Revolution, an undertaking which Irving had in mind off and 
on for thirty years before it was actually accomphshed. His 
motive was patriotic and personal. There was a certain 
sentimental interest in the name of a man for whom he himself 
was named. The story of how" his nurse followed the great 
man into a shop one day, soon after he became President, is a 
familiar one: 'Tlease, your honor," said she, ''here's a bairn 
was named after you." The stately Virginian put his hand 
on the child's head and gave him his blessing. ''The touch 
could not have been more eflScacious," says Charles Dudley 
Warner,^ ' 'though it might have lingered longer, if he had 
known he was propitiating his future biographer." And so, 
as his final labor, Irving wrought out this voluminous Life of 
Washington and left it to his countrymen. It is in a sense 
both a tribute and a legacy. 

Literary Characteristics and Contribution. — Irving's works 
perfectly reflect his personahty. Indeed, it is this diffusion of 
himself through his writings that gives them their charm. He 
is not critical, but placidly reflective, painting his portraits 
in an atmosphere of sunshine, now and then faintly darkened 
with a hght, passing cloud of melancholy. Gentle humor and 
amiable sen timent are the prevailing quahties in his most 

^Life of Washington Irving, p. 23. 



118 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

representative productions. He is best in shorter sketches of 
personal character; even in his longer works, like Knicker- 
bocker's History of New York, which is a sustained piece of 
romance, the patches of description and portraiture are the 
most interesting parts. Consequently, his genius found ad- 
equate expression in books of sketches and tales, such as 
the Sketch Book, Tales of a Traveller, and The Alhamhra, 
rather than in long narratives, in which keen analysis and 
sustained thought are more necessary. What he lacked in 
vigor and incisiveness he made up in lucidity and grace. Tem- 
peramentally, and therefore in his style, he is kin to Goldsmith 
and Addison, whose writings his own often suggest. It is in 
truth a delightful style, and it wears well; one may read it 
without weariness; it is a 'Veil of Enghsh undefiled," bubbling 
out of his own genial soul. 

The contribution of Irving to American literature is impor- 
tant. In the first place, he is in a sense the father of our litera- 
ture; for he was the first American to win international fame 
as purely a man of letters. His writings caused European 
nations to realize that there was such a thing as American 
literature, notwithstanding the fact that much of his subject 
matter is foreign; this was to be expected, however, in the 
writing of a man who spent over twenty years of his life abroad 
and to whose artistic temperament old-world scenes and 
themes were naturally congenial. 

In the second place, he is a pioneer in that art of short-story 
writing which constitutes one of the chief glories of American 
literature. The tales of Irving are not genuine short stories, 
as we now understand that form of hterature perfected by 
Poe and Hawthorne and in which compression, unity, and 
final climax are necessary; strictly speaking, they are what 
he called them, sketches, — loosely constructed little narratives, 
relieved by bits of description and proceeding in a leisurely 
manner, ^uch stories as *'Rip Van Winkle" and 'The Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow/' though lacking the clear-cut form of a 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 119 

modern short story as defined and originated by Poe, are the 
first forerunners of the numerous tribe; indeed, in point of 
interest and in Hterary quahty, they are superior to hosts of 
their latter-day successors. 

In the third place, Irving created the fascinating ^'Knicker- 
bocker Legend' ' and invested the historic Hudson with the 
glamour of romance. This is his most distinctive contribution 
to literature. That region had long been waiting for a magi- 
cian to evoke from its valleys the spirits of its musty tradi- 
tions. This Irving did when, as Diedrich Knickerbocker, he 
rehabilitated the Dutch governors, the men and women of 
vanished New Amsterdam, and created Rip Van Winkle and 
Ichabod Crane. To give New York a picturesque back- 
ground of tradition and thereby to reflect a charming bit of 
American local color, was in truth no inconsiderable achieve- 
ment. This the Old World promptly recognized. 

Finally, it should not be forgotten that Irving was the first 
American to import into our literature the romantic legends 
and history of Spain, that country under whose flag Columbus 
sailed and from which explorers came to our southern shores. 
Certainly no one else has more attractively recreated for us 
the atmosphere of that richly storied past. For all these 
contributions Irving's place is secure. He is not one of the 
great writers of the world, but within his hmits he is a joy to 
a steady stream of readers; his pleasing prose is a delight to 
cultivated minds and should be a model to youthful writers. 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851) 

His Life. — James Fenimore Cooper, the first great romancer of the 
forest and the sea in American literature, was born at Burlington, New 
Jersey, in 1789. When he was less than a year old his father moved to 
what is now Cooperstown on Otsego Lake. This region was then a 
wilderness, and here amid the primitive conditions of a backwoods 
settlement the boy was brought up. At a local school he was prepared 
for Yale College, which he entered in 1802 before he was fourteen. He 
was a poor student; besides, in his junior year he indulged in some college 



120 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 



pranks which the authorities judged to be sufficient cause for his dis- 
missal. His father, a man of some prominence socially and politically, 
decided to get his son into the navy; as there was then no naval academy, 
young Cooper was in 1806 entered as a sailor on a vessel about to sail for 
England and the Mediterranean, as the beginning of his apprenticeship. 
In two years he became midshipman, was a little later detailed to aid 
in the construction of a brig on Lake Ontario, and during the next two 
years he saw considerable service at sea. In 1811 he married, and as 
his wife objected to the prolonged absences from home which his voca- 
tion involved, he resigned from the navy after serving about four years. 
This experience, as we shall see, stood him later in good stead as an 
author. The next few years he spent partly at Cooperstown and partly 
in Westchester county, his wife's home, doing a little farming and 
managing his property. 

Not until 1820, when Cooper was thirty, had he done any literary 
work, nor, indeed, had he shown any inclination that way. One day he 
was reading to his wife a new English society novel; laying the book 
down, he remarked that he could write a better novel than that himself. 
He was challenged to do so; whereupon he set to work and before the 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 121 

end of that same year of 1820 he published a novel called Precaution, 
dealing with English social life. Of this Cooper certainly knew very 
little, for he had spent only a few days in London while he was in the 
navy, and he must therefore have gained his knowledge from books. Pre- 
caution has little value, and as far as the general public was concerned it 
had small success; it is worth noting, however, that it was reprinted 
in England, where the reviewers, strangely enough, assumed that the 
author was an English woman. As a first attempt, this was not so bad 
after all, and the author was encouraged by his friends, despite the 
indifferent success of his venture, to try his hand at an American theme. 
They argued that if he could write on a subject he knew nothing about, 
he would make a hit with a subject drawn from familiar scenes. He 
had heard the story of a spy in the Revolutionary War whose exploits 
belonged to the very county in which he was then living. Out of this 
grew his first romance. The Spy, published in 1821. This was the begin- 
ning of his long series of stories, of which a detailed account will pre- 
sently be given. 

In 1826 Cooper, now a successful and famous man of letters, went to 
Europe, where he spent the next seven years. His longest stay was in 
France, though he lived some time in England, Germany, Switzerland, 
and Italy; of all these countries, Italy most appealed to his romantic na- 
ture. During these years abroad he was busy at his writing, producingsix 
or seven books, several of which have European settings. He was treated 
with distinguished regard everywhere, for his books were popular, and 
in France he was lionized. At a reception in Paris he met Scott, then 
in the zenith of fame. Cooper observed with irritation the ignorance 
of Europeans about America and the hurtful misconceptions growing 
out of it, especially in England, where he expected to find more accurate 
information in regard to the kin across the sea. On the other hand, 
he saw more clearly the crudeness and self-complacency of his own 
coimtrymen in comparison with the refinement and culture of the older 
civilization of Europe. In order to set forth his views and to help both 
sides — to cure the ignorance of the one and the bad manners of the 
other — he wrote a book. Notions of the Americans Picked up by a Travel- 
ling Bachelor (1828), composed of a number of letters purporting to be 
from an English traveler in the United States. As might be expected, 
this work was pleasing to neither side, and was the beginning of the 
adverse criticism of Cooper which, after his return to America, grew 
into the most famous series of quarrels in the history of American author- 
ship. 

Cooper returned to America in 1833, and the remaining eighteen years 
of his life were embittered by controversies and libel suits. The story 



122 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of these quarrels forms a considerable chapter in his life,* but in this 
brief sketch it is not worth while to attempt any detailed account of 
his troubles, which, after all, have nothing to do with an appreciation 
of his novels. Stated in a few words, the situation was this: Cooper 
wrote a pamphlet and three more or less satirical works, in which he 
replied to criticisms on his novels, commented rather caustically on 
the faults of his countrymen, and attacked the press; he also published 
A History of the Navy of the United States, which displeased the partisans 
of two rival claimants for the chief honors of the battle of Lake Erie 
in the War of 1812. The newspapers took up the hue and cry against 
the novelist, and he promptly sued one after another for libel and won 
most of the suits. Meanwhile some of his fellow townsmen at Coopers- 
town had cut down a certain fine tree on his estate and had otherwise 
abused the privilege of using the grounds along the lake as a park; there- 
upon, Cooper forbade the use of the grounds. He was denounced and 
his books removed from the public library of the town. 

For years he was the most unpopular literary man in America. In spite 
of this, however, he continued to write novels, and several of his best 
works were issued during these troubled years. Even his enemies read 
his romances with delight; Thurlow Weed, for instance, whom Cooper 
was suing for an editorial in his paper, sat up all night to finish The 
Pathfinder which had just appeared. Much of this criticism was unjust 
to Cooper, but his infirmities of temper invited and prolonged the attacks. 
So keenly did he feel the injustice done him, that on his deathbed he 
requested his family not to assist in the preparation of any biography. 
He died in 1851, and was buried at Cooperstown. A noble monument, 
crowned by a statue of his great character, "Leatherstocking," over- 
looks Otsego Lake which he invested with the colors of romance. 

His Personality .^Cooper was a man of strong convictions, 
independence of mind, and an irascible temper. He impressed 
strangers as proud and self-assertive; the poet Bryant, one of his 
warmest friends, speaks of ''being somewhat startled .... 
with a certain emphatic frankness in his manner,'' when he 
first met him. He made a few devoted friends, and he seems 
to have had a genius for making enemies. This last was due 
to an apparently incurable habit of telling people unpleasant 
truths. When they showed irritation and called him names, 

^See Lounsbury's Life of Cooper ("American Men of Letters"), chaps, 
viii-xi. 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 123 

he promptly sued them for Hbel. His intentions were good, 
but his method was unfortunate. In a word, he lacked 
tact. In manner he was doubtless somewhat arrogant and 
overbearing. He was, moreover, extremely sensitive, and 
promptly resented the criticisms of his enemies. Whatever 
these may have said, however, he was an honest and uprighf 
man; he loved and practised sincerity, though in a militant 
fashion. He was ever a fighter. It was quite characteristic 
of him, for instance, to act as his own counsel in several of the 
numerous libel suits against editors; in the famous trial which 
followed the pubhcation of his history of the navy, Cooper 
conducted his own case and spoke for six hours with telling 
effect; indeed, he seldom lost a case. 

Weaknesses of temper he certainly had, and he was wanting 
in that sense of humor which keeps a man from taking either 
himself or his enemies too seriously; but these, after all, are not 
faults of character. Fearlessness and truthfulness are men- 
tioned by Professor Lounsbury as leading traits in Cooper. 
The thoughtful reader of his life and works will agree with his 
biographer's assertion that America ' 'counts on the scanty 
roll of her men of letters the name of no one who acted from 
purer patriotism or loftier principle. '^ 

His Romances. — The complete works of Cooper, as origin- 
ally pubhshed, number something hke one hundred volumes. 
These include history, biography, reviews, travel, controversial 
pamphlets, magazine articles, and over thirty novels. Of his 
thirty-odd novels, or, more properly speaking, romances, 
fewer than half belong to the world's great works of fiction. 
For the purposes of this brief history it is best to confine our- 
selves to an account of his most representative novels, those 
which still hold their own as vital contributions to American 
literature. The romances, exclusive of several satirical novels 
of httle value, fall into three classes — historical, sea tales, and 
romances of the forest. Of the historical novels. The Spy 
(1821), Lionel Lincoln (1825), and Mercedes of Castile (1840), 



124 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

are representative; The Pilot (1824), The Red Rover (1828), 
The Water-Witch (1830), and The Two Admirals (1842), are 
stories of the sea; the important frontier tales are, in the order 
of pubhcation. The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans 
(1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The 
Deer slayer (1841). 

Of all the romances eight are by common consent the greatest, 
and on these eight posterity has based its judgment of Cooper's 
merits as a novehst: The Spy, The Pilot, The Red Rover; and 
the five books dealing with the adventures of a central charac- 
ter. Natty Bumppo, otherwise known as *'Hawkeye" and 
^'Leatherstocking." These five stories are the famous ''Leather- 
stocking Tales," so named from the hero, whose career from 
youth to old age is recounted in the books arranged as follows: 
The Deer slayer, The Pathfinder, The Last of the Mohicans, 
The Pioneers, The Prairie. They should be read in this order. 

A brief running comment on some of the principal romances 
will give a general notion of their characteristics. 

The Spy is the story of Harvey Birch, who rendered valuable 
service to Washington's army in the Revolution. He is one 
of the most clear-cut characters of American fiction; so real, 
indeed, does Cooper make him that many readers have taken 
him as a veritable historical personage. As already stated, 
this hero was developed from certain anecdotes about a secret 
agent who served in the war for independence, related years 
before to the novelist by John Jay. The Spy had a surpris- 
ingly favorable reception both at home and abroad; it was 
translated into the principal languages of Europe, and it 
retains its popularity as the best of Cooper's historical romances. 
So doubtful was the author about the success of a book on a 
purely American theme, that he delayed the completion of 
The Spy for months after the first volume had been printed. 
To placate the pubhshers, who feared that the novel might 
be too long. Cooper wrote, paged, and had the last chapter 
printed while the first part of the second volume was in the 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 125 



press and before the intervening chapters had even been 
thought out. The enthusiastic praise which greeted the work 
everywhere was a distinct surprise to the half-despairing 
noveHst and his anxious pubHshers. An American rival to 
Scott had come upon the scene. With the appearance of the 
Sketch BooA;inl820 and The 
Spy In 1821 American litera- 
ture had begun to have a 
distinctive character. 

The Pilot and The Red 
Rover are romances of the 
sea. The first of these was 
suggested to Cooper by a 
discussion on the merits and 
demerits of Scott's The Pi- 
ratey recently published. At 
a dinner party in New York 
in 1822, when the talk turned 
on the latest of the '^Waver- 
ley Novels," the authorship 
of which had not yet been 
disclosed. Cooper, who had 
guessed the secret, main- 
tained that the author of The 
Pirate was a landsman and 
not a sailor. The English 
novel, he thought, showed 
httle intimate familiarity 
with the sea. Now Cooper 
had spent several years on 
shipboard and knew in detail 
the mechanism of seacraft 
and all the phases of a sailor's life; he accordingly decided to 
write a sea story. He daringly seized upon the American 
naval adventurer, Paul Jones, and made him, as the 'Tilot," 




'LEATHERSTOCKING" MONUMENT 
Otsego Lake, N. Y. 



126 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the hero of a fascinating narrative of Revolutionary times. 
Long Tom Coffin, the Nantucket whaler, is a masterly crea- 
tion, while the breezy incidents and descriptions make The 
Pilot one of the liveliest sea tales ever written. Not less 
fascinating to those who love '^blue water and a ship'' and 
adventures on the deep is The Red Rover, the second and, as 
some would have it, the greatest of the stories of the sea. 

The ^'Leatherstocking Tales" have been called a five-act 
drama in the life of the hero, Natty Bumppo. In The Deer- 
slayer we have the youthful hunter on the warpath; in The 
Last of the Mohicans we find Hawkeye in his prime, the center 
of action; The Pathfinder shows us Leatherstocking in love; 
The Pioneers and The Prairie give us pictures of the declining 
years of the famous frontiersman. The two last mentioned 
were written earliest; then the author worked back to the 
youth of his hero and succeeded, strange to say, in making 
the series a perfect one. The Pioneers is the poorest of the 
group, lacking in action and overcrowded with descriptions; 
Cooper indulged too far his fondness for recording the famihar 
scenes of his boyhood and so paralyzed the movement of the 
story. Artistically considered. The Deerslayer and The Path- 
finder are probably the finest of the series: the simphcity of 
the plots, the clear delineation of the characters, the fresh 
enthusiasm of the young hunter and the growing sense of 
loyalty in the youthful Indian, the charm of the lake and the 
mystic depths of the forest, the confessions of love in woodland 
trysting-places, — these give the two romances an atmosphere 
almost idyllic. The Prairie has more of grandeur, more of 
solemn beauty, than the rest: the figure of the old hunter in 
the vast solitudes, moving westward to escape the oncoming 
human tide, is invested with something of the pathos and 
the gloom of tragedy. 

The Last of the Mohicans has ever been a prime favorite 
with the public. From the very first its success was almost 
prodigious. Europeans vied with Americans in praising it; 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 127 

here, indeed, was fresh material at last, here were scenes pic- 
turing to the foreign mind pioneer America. The book came 
out in 1826, and permanently established Cooper's fame. Of 
all the ^'Leatherstocking Tales" The Last of the Mohicans has 
the swiftest movement; incident follows incident with thrilling 
and cumulative effect; spirited narration and graphic descrip- 
tion enliven the passing panorama of the Indian-haunted 
forests. Read, for instance, the twenty-third chapter, if you 
would imderstand the harmony of setting with character and 
action so common in this romance : you feel the rush, you see 
the coloring, and the blood flows faster in your veins. Or, if 
you would be calmed by meditating on the subhme and somber 
aspects of nature in her more elevated moods, read the poetic 
descriptions in chapters fourteen and eighteen. In this work 
Hawkeye, or Leatherstocking, is in the fulness of his manhood : 
he attracts us by his vigor and resourcefulness, his dependable 
judgment, his moral soundness, his wonderful sagacity. We 
admire the loyalty and the heroism of the Indian Chingach- 
gook and his son Uncas, somewhat ideahzed, no doubt; but, 
by way of contrast, we have plenty of bad Indians, such as 
the fiendish Magna. Fortunate is the youth who, in the 
plastic years when the imagination is still fresh, peoples his 
mind with these primitive dwellers in the wildwood. 

Literary Characteristics and Contribution. — Cooper was 
first of all a good story-teller. He had something fresh and 
vital to tell, and he proceeded to tell it without any great con- 
cern about the laws of Hterary art. It is therefore easy to find 
fault with his workmanship. He was a hasty writer, careless 
in the structure of his plots and in the more delicate matters 
of style. Now and then, indeed, the style is sUpshod and the 
grammar out of joint; but there is so much of movement and 
of color, cardinal virtues in a romance, that one readily over- 
looks such lapses. When the interest begins to flag because 
of a long stretch of description, rehef is sure to come in action 
filled with suspense. Exciting incidents of hairbreadth escapes 



128 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

keep the reader going; he may skip the descriptions, the moral- 
izings, and the character-sketchings, and still hold to the 
thread of rapid narration. Cooper's descriptions, however, 
are remarkably fine and should not be skipped; he had a posi- 
tive genius for vivid painting of forest scenes, and in his best 
stories the setting is an integral part of the plot. 

Cooper's best-drawn characters are men of a few simple 
and noble traits, such as Harvey Birch, Long Tom Coffin, 
and Leatherstocking, in whom certain primitive motives are 
strong. For complex characters the novelist had apparently 
no great liking; direct and virile, he was no subtle analyst 
of sophisticated folk; men of the woods, living close to nature, 
he could draw. Hence the three individuals just mentioned 
stand out clear-cut and essentially true to hfe, in spite of cer- 
tain inconsistencies of language and a few well-nigh impossible 
heroisms. His women are more or less conventional, bloodless 
creatures, strangely at variance with the rather athletic type 
in modern fiction and, indeed, with the frontier woman of the 
realists. It must be remembered, however, that in early 
nineteenth century romance the clinging, delicately beautiful 
maiden was fashionable; Cooper's ^'females" are no more 
inane than some of Scott's. They are stock figures, quite 
dependent upon the men and a Httle out of place in the savage- 
infested woods, except as affording a touch of chivalric coloring 
to the rough knighthood of the frontier. 

As to the truthfulness of Cooper's portrayal of Indian 
character there has been much discussion. He chose a few 
good Indians and clothed them in the colors of romance; the 
rest he pictured as treacherous, drunken, and murderous. 
He certainly understood Indian nature, for he was near enough 
to the pioneer w^arfare in his own region to have heard from 
the mouths of witnesses the stories of Indian fights; eleven 
years before his birth the great Indian massacre of Cherry 
Valley took place near his home on Otsego Lake. Moreover, 
he was a diligent student of available records of Indian life, 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 129 

and he saw many Indians from various tribes. Naturally 
he gave to the Indian as a subject of romance a certain epic 
largeness, a touch of ideahsm, in keeping -with the poetic con- 
ception of a retreating race battling for its very Hfe before 
the advancing pale-face hosts. And so, whether he was true 
to facts is of minor consequence; the thing to be remembered 
is that he made the people of two continents feel a new interest 
in the Indian. 

Cooper was the first writer to give to the world the romance 
of the American forest. What Irving did for the Hudson 
River region,. Cooper did for the Otsego Lake district. Charles 
Brockden Brown had put Indians into one of his novels, but 
only incidentally, as it were; it remained for Cooper to make 
them an essential part of fiction. Across the sea Walter Scott 
had won fame before the American began his forest stories, 
but in a few years the latter rivaled in popularity the Wizard 
of the North. In 1833 Morse, the inventor of the electric 
telegraph, wrote: ''In every city of Europe that I visited the 
works of Cooper were conspicuously placed in the windows 
of every bookshop. They are pubhshed as soon as he produces 
them in thirty-four different places in Europe. They have 
been seen by American travelers in the languages of Turkey 
and Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at 
Ispahan.'* It is safe to say that the ''Leatherstocking Tales'* 
have had a wider reading in Europe than any other series of 
books by an American author. Cooper was, moreover, the 
first American to write romantic sea tales; he created the 
novel of the ocean in our literature, out of his own experience. 
He gave us, too, the historical novel. His best work is made 
up from native material: when he touched the forest, the 
prairie, the sea, he was at home ; in the larger poetry of nature 
he is a master, and his romances form thus far the truest epic 
in American hterature. Along the trail he blazed, msmy story- 
tellers have passed, but no one of them has shaped with so 
vital a hand the crude material of pioneer days. 



130 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



1 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878) 

His Life. — William CuUen Bryant, greatest of the poets of the 
"Knickerbocker Group," was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, 
in 1794, the son of a country physician of prominence and culture. He 
was of sound Puritan stock, and on his mother's side was descended 
from John Alden and Priscilla. In his childhood he read much in the 
Bible and heard it read in his home; the prayers of visiting clergymen 
made a deep impression on him, many of these prayers being, as he 
afterward said, "poems from beginning to end." Of the beautiful coun- 
try of western Massachusetts he was very fond, so that he came to 
know intimately all the features of those picturesque landscapes. These 
first experiences had much to do with the making of his poetry and the 
determining of his ideals. His father had a good library of eighteenth 
century classics, and here the boy read widely. Even in his childhood 
he prayed that he "might receive the gift of poetic genius and write 
verses that might endure." In those early days his favorite poets were 
Pope, Blair, and Kirke White; a little later he fancied Scott and Byron, 
but Wordsworth soon took hold of him and remained to the end his 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 131 

favorite poet. Young Bryant was prepared for college under private 
tutors, and at the age of sixteen entered Williams College as a sopho- 
more. His father not being able to keep him in college, the boy left 
after less than a year's residence and turned to the study of law. . 

For the next three or four years (1811-'15) Bryant was working at his 
legal studies, for which, like other literary men before and since, he 
had no very great enthusiasm; in 1815 he was admitted to the bar, how- 
ever, and for ten years practised his profession with fair success in two 
towns of western Massachusetts, Plainfield and Great Barrington. 
Meanwhile he had married and was writing poetry. Long before this, 
when he was only thirteen, he had written a satiric poem, ''The 
Embargo," which had an extensive local circulation; there are verses 
extant, indeed, and not such bad ones either, written at the age of nine. 
At seventeen he wrote ''Thanatopsis," but laid it away; two years 
later he composed the lines ''To a Waterfowl"; in 1821 he read his. poem, 
"The Ages," before the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard, an unusual 
honor certainly for a young country poet. It will be seen therefore that 
for the young attorney law was unequally dividing honors with litera- 
ture. In fact, so great had grown his dissatisfaction with his profession, 
that in 1825 he gave up his practice and went to New York to become an 
editor. 

The rest of Bryant's long life was spent in New York. He was for 
two or three years connected with a literary periodical there; when 
that failed, he was offered the position of associate editor of the New 
York Evening Post, In 1828 he became editor-in-chief of this paper, 
and a few years later, both editor and proprietor. For the next fifty 
years he directed the policies of the Evening Posty making it one of the 
most influential newspapers in America. Bryant went to Europe in 
1834 and spent two years; the broadening effect of this European travel 
was seen both in his editorial and literary work. He made a number 
of other trips to Europe, besides journeys to the Orient, the West Indies, 
and Mexico. In 1843 he bought an estate on Long Island, near Roslyn, 
and there built a suburban residence; about twenty years later he ac- 
quired the old Bryant homestead at Cummington, Mass., and gave 
to the little town a public library. His editorial labors he varied by 
writing poetry, translating Homer, contributing literary articles to 
magazines, and making memorial addresses. On special occasions 
of a commemorative nature he was much in demand. The last public 
appearance of Bryant was in Central Park, New York, in the spring 
of 1878, when he made an address on the occasion of the unveiling of a 
statue to Mazzini, the Italian patriot. As the poet was entering the 
house of a friend after the exercises, he fell, striking his head on the 



132 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

stones; from the effects of this fall he died in two weeks, aged eighty- 
four. He was buried at his country home, Roslyn, Long Island. 

His Personality. — In his prime, Bryant, according to his 
son-in-law and biographer, Godwin, was of ''medium height, 
spare in figure, with a clean-shaven face, unusually large head, 
bright eyes, and a wearied, severe, almost saturnine expres- 
sion of countenance. One, however, remarked at once the 
exceeding gentleness of his manner, and a rare sweetness in 
the tone of his voice, as well as an extraordinary purity in 
his selection and pronunciation of Enghsh.'' In his old age 
he looked like a patriarch, with his abundant white beard 
and his silvery hair. He came of sturdy New England stock, 
and there was in the man as well as in the poet a reflection 
of that sturdiness, touched with a certain austerity bordering 
on coldness. He was singularly regular in his habits and 
simple in his diet; he walked to his office and back, a distance 
of several miles, regardless of the weather, and he was fond 
of long country rambles. He particularly loved to work in 
his garden and among his flower-beds. To this simple manner 
of fife was due in large measure his vigorous old age. 

Dignity, purity of character, calmness, reserve, — ^these are 
some of the personal traits that suggest themselves to the 
reader of Bryant's life and writings. He awakened respect 
and admiration rather than enthusiasm, more of reverence 
than of love. His native kindliness of spirit was somewhat 
obscured by his outward reserve. The Puritan element in 
him was strong. He was a striking figure in his later years: 
men are still living who recall the impressive, distinguished 
appearance of the venerable poet and editor in the streets 
of New York. 

His Poetry. — Bryant's collected works consist of two volumes 
of prose — essays, sketches, addresses, — a translation of Homer 
into blank verse, and a small volume of poems. It is only as a 
poet, however, that he is entitled to a place among standard 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 133 

authors. His prose work shows a scholarly taste and a polished 
style, but is not remarkable; his memorial addresses are admir- 
able examples of formal eulogy. Bryant was a busy editor 
and found little time for writing verse; this will account in 
part for the slender product of his muse. At least one fourth 
of his poetry was written before he went to New York to live 
in 1825, and the rest was composed at irregular intervals 
during the next fifty-odd years. Several of his greatest poems 
belong to the early period. 

'^Thanatopsis/' the most famous of Bryant's poems and 
the first great poem written in America, was pubhshed in the 
North American Review for September, 1817, though it had 
been composed six years before, when the poet was in his 
eighteenth year. The beginning and the ending of the poem as 
we now have it, first appeared in the little volume of his poems 
issued by the author in 1821. Young Bryant had written 
'^Thanatopsis" and laid it away in his desk; the poet's father 
found it and sent it to the magazine, but the editors could hardly 
believe that so mature a piece had been written by a boy, and 
for a while persisted in attributing its authorship to the elder 
Bryant. During a ramble in the sohtary woods in 1811 the 
youthful poet composed most of the now famihar lines, the 
title of which, "Thanatopsis," means a view or vision of death. 
He was of Puritan ancestry, be it remembered, and to his 
mind the somber aspects of nature carried a solemn message. 
^^Thanatopsis" at once became popular: no such lines had 
yet been read in American literature; schoolbooks reprinted 
them and pubhc speakers, particularly ministers, quoted 
them; soon their magnificent harmony was a possession of all 
serious souls. 

The lines ^To a Waterfowl," which many discriminating 
readers consider Bryant's best poem, were written when the 
poet was twenty-one or twenty-two, about the time he was 
beginning the practice of law. One December afternoon he 
was walking over the hills of western Massachusetts, feeling 



134 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

^'very forlorn and desolate," as he says in a letter; a splendid 
sunset was followed by a rosy afterglow, and a solitary bird 
was seen winging its way along the serene and lonely horizon. 
The lawyer-poet watched the bird until it was lost in the 
deepening twihght, and ''then went on with new strength 
and courage." That night he composed the poem, ''To a 
Waterfowl," with its comforting lesson of faith, draT\TL from 
the flight of the lone wanderer in the evening skies. It is, 
indeed, a noble lyric, tinged with melancholy, but deeply 
saturated with serene religious feeling and high beauty. Mat- 
thew Arnold, the Enghsh poet and critic, considered "To a 
Waterfowl" one of the best short poems in the language.^ 
Such stanzas as these have a fine movement and diction: 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

He w^ho, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 

Other earlier poems are "The Yellow Violet," "Green River" 
(a favorite with the poet), "Monument Mountain" (connected 
with an Indian legend of western Massachusetts), "A Forest 
Hymn," "To the Fringed Gentian," and "The Death of the 
Flowers." "A Forest Hymn" reflects the solemn beauty of 
the woods in a sort of stately chant: the lines appealed to 
Poe, who thought it "scarcely possible to speak too highly 

^See Bigelow's Life of Bryant, pp. 42-43, footnote, for views of Mat- 
thew Arnold and Hartley Coleridge. 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 135 

of their great rhythmical beauty/' The Httle poem, ''To 
the Fringed Gentian/' celebrates a distinctively American 
flower, and is as fresh as Burns's and Wordsworth's lines on 
English flowers. Bryant drew his images from what he saw. 
around him, as all true nature poets do. For the sea and the 
mountains he apparently cared little; he loved the forests 
through which he wandered in his boyhood, and he loved the 
smaller flowers in the meadows near at hand. Many of his 
poems are on autumn and winter scenes, and evening seems 
to have made a stronger appeal to his meditative spirit than 
morning. 

In the poems of his maturer and later years the same strains 
prevail, and it cannot be said that there is greater variety or 
any decided growth in poetic art. His patriotic verses are 
respectable, but lack the passion which marks the movement 
of the highest examples of that species of poetry. ''The Little 
People of the Snow" is a pleasing treatment of a delicately 
supernatural theme — children and fairies — in dialogue form, 
but it has no real dramatic quality. Indeed, the last important 
production of the aged poet, ''The Flood of Years," while it 
shows no loss of power, is neither in manner nor in matter 
superior to the earlier reflective poems. There is one poem 
of Bryant's middle years which has a different note from his 
other lyric utterances, and that is the sprightly "Robert of 
Lincoln," or "Bob-o'-link." Read aloud in a sympathetic 
voice, this is one of the most musical and spontaneous lyrics 
in American literature. Take these stanzas, for instance: 

Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed, 

Wearing a bright black wedding coat; 
White are his shoulders and white his crest, 
Hear him call in his merry note: 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Look what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so fine. 
Chee, chee, chee. 



136 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, 

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 
Passing at home a patient life. 

Broods in the grass while her husband sings: 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Brood, kind creature; you need not fear 
Thieves and robbers while I am here. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Six white eggs on a bed of hay, 

Flecked with purple, a pretty sight I 
There as the mother sits all day, 
Robert is singing with all his might: 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Nice good wife, that never goes out, 
Keeping house while I frolic about. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Bryant's Translation of Homer was begun in earnest in 
1866, partly as a distraction from his sorrow at the death of 
Mrs. Bryant that same year, though even before that he had 
put many passages of the Greek poet into English verse. The 
translation of the Iliad went on steadily, so many lines a day 
as a set task, for four years; then the old poet set to work 
on the Odyssey. By 1871 both poems were issued in smooth 
and dignified blank verse, as faithful to the spirit of the original 
as a reflective poet like Bryant could be to a rapid poet of 
action like Homer. It is a creditable translation, certainly for 
a man over seventy, more than fifty years distant from his 
college study of Greek; indeed, it would be hard to point out 
a better rendering of the old epic poet into English verse. 
The popularity of this version continues, though more spirited 
translations have since been made in prose. 

Literary Characteristics. — Bryant's range is narrow, but 
in that range he is a master. He is our first genuine nature 
poet. He interprets to the spirit of man the calming, con- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 137 

soling effect of communion with nature. His view of nature 
is distinctly ethical, true Puritan that he was; he does not, 
hke Wordsworth, with whom he has often been compared, 
find a mystic meaning in nature. The outward aspects of 
nature suggesting change and death appeal to Bryant more 
than the inner joyousness of the springing flowers and budding 
trees of springtime. Hence he prefers the melancholy of autumn 
and the coldness of winter. The thought of death is a favorite 
one with him.^ His poetry is in truth without warmth: it is 
majestic and solemn, and there is something of monotony 
about it; but it always has moral elevation. Long narrative 
poems he could not write; of humor he had Httle; dramatic 
instinct he did not have. 

A noticeable feature of Bryant's poetry is the ''moral tag"; 
the clinching of the lesson of the poem in a closing stanza 
makes it a miniature sermon. Recall, for example, the final 
lines of 'Thanatopsis,'' 'To a Waterfowl," "Autumn Woods," 
"A Forest Hymn," and even of so lyric an utterance as "The 
Fringed Gentian" : 

I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 
Hope blossoming within my heart, 
May look to heaven as I depart. 

This ethical application at the end of a poem proved partic- 
ularly satisfying to many serious-minded readers, who thought 
that every poem should teach something; to others it seemed 
a blemish, an almost impertinent emphasis of the obvious. 
There can be no doubt that this didactic fashion won for the 
poet a wide circle of readers and helped to estabhsh his fame, 
whatever a more sensitive modern taste may feel about "moral 
tags." 

This moral earnestness has made Bryant a quotable poet. 
Many lines have become current coin : 

^Even in his poem on ''June" each stanza makes some reference to 
death or the grave. 



138 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The groves were God's first temples. 

• — From "A Forest Hymn." 

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, 
Th' eternal years of God are hers; 
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies among his worshippers. 

—From ''The Battlefield.'' 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year; 
Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows 
brown and sere. 

— From "Death of the Flowers." 

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

— From "Thanatopsis." 

The blank verse of Bryant is not only the greatest in American 
literature, but for serene dignity and noble cadence it has 
rarely been equalled since Milton. It is a fitting garment for 
the gravity and simplicity of the poet's favorite ideas; the 
lines read aloud affect one like slow organ music. The diction 
shows the influence of that early hearing and reading of the 
Bible, which was an invaluable part of Puritan training. 

The picturesque region in which he was brought up fur- 
nished the background of Bryant's poems, as the English 
Lake country gave Wordsworth his material. As Irving was 
the first American writer to interpret to the world the Hudson 
River region and Cooper the first to make famous the scenery 
about Otsego Lake, Bryant was the earliest poet to invest 
with literary charm his native bit of New England soil. His 
long residence in New York entitles him to be placed in the 
' 'Knickerbocker Group'^ of writers, but his inspiration as a 
poet came from the land of the Puritans. 

MINOR WRITERS 

Besides the three leading authors of the Knickerbocker 
Group already considered, there were a few minor writers 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 139 

whose work is more or less imitative of English models or 
somewhat fragmentary, and who therefore made no very 
significant contribution to American hterature. It will be 
worth while to notice briefly at least three of these — Drake, 
Halleck, and Willis, — and to give the rest a passing mention. 

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820). — Drake was born in 
New York, began writing verses when a mere child, lost his 
parents early in life and had to go in business, studied medi- 
cine and practised it in connection with his duties as a druggist, 
and died of consumption at the age of twenty-five. Such, in 
a sentence, was the brief outward career of this gifted minor 
poet, whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous with 
that of John Keats and whose pathetic struggles with disease 
suggest those of the young Englishman. Drake was the inti- 
mate friend of Fitz-Greene Halleck; the two men — often 
called ''the Damon and Pythias of American verse" — ^were 
literary partners and worked together in several productions, 
notably in the '^ Croaker Papers," a series of fight, satirical 
verses published in the New York Evening Post. 

Drake has lived in hterature, however, as the author of two 
poems — ''The Culprit Fay," a delicate narrative and descrip- 
tive poem on the penance done by a fairy for loving a mortal; 
and ''The American Flag," one of the best of our patriotic 
lyrics. "The Culprit Fay" was suggested by a conversation 
between Drake, Halleck, and Cooper, in which it was asserted 
that American streams could furnish no such themes for poetry 
as the streams and hills of Scotland. To disprove this, Drake 
set to work and in three days, it is said, finished "The Culprit 
Fay," the scene of which is in the highlands overlooking the 
Hudson. The poem contains some musical verse and many 
ingenious fancies; and while the fairies are a little out of place 
in that region, such native birds and insects as the whippoor- 
will, the owl, the katydid, and the cricket, give to certain 
passages a pleasing local color. The following fines will serve to 
iUustrate the movement and the daintiness of the descriptions i 



140 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Soft and pale is the moony beam, 
Moveless still the glassy stream; 
The wave is clear, the beach is bright 

With snowy shells and sparkling stones; 
The shore-surge comes in ripples light, 

In murmuriQgs faint and distant moans;- 
And ever afar in the silence deep 
Is heard the splash of the sturgeon's leap, 
And the bend of his graceful bow is seen — 
A glittering arch of silver sheen, 
Spanning the wave of burnished blue, 
And dripping with gems of the river-dew. 

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867).— Halleck was born at 
Guilford, Connecticut, and after a little school-teaching and 
clerking at home, came to New York in 1811 to accept a clerk- 
ship in a banking-house. Later he was employed in the office 
of John Jacob Astor, from which he retired in 1849 on a small 
annuity. The rest of his life was spent at his old home in 
Connecticut. Here in 1870, the eightieth anniversary of his 
birth, a monument was raised over his grave by his townspeople, 
the first honor of the kind paid to the memory of an American 
poet. 

Soon after Halleck came to New York he met Drake, and 
the two soon became bosom friends; Drake, it seems, had 
been attracted to his fellow poet by the latter's remark that 
it ''would be heaven to lounge upon the rainbow and read 
Tom Campbell.'' This will indicate the favorite reading of 
the young poets; Campbell and Byron they greatly hked. 
Halleck and Drake wrote verses for the New York papers in 
the light satiric vein popular in that day. Halleck's long 
poems are Alnwick Castle and Fanny, the last in the manner 
of Byron's Beppo or Don Juan; but the two poems on which 
his fame rests are ''Marco Bozzaris," long a favorite piece 
for declamation, and the fines "On the Death of Joseph Rod- 
man Drake." "Marco Bozzaris" celebrates the heroic death 
pf the Greek leader in the romantic struggle for independence 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 141 

against the Turks, in which Byron took a noble part. The 
closing lines have become a familiar quotation: 

For thou art Freedom's now and Fame's, 
One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die. 

Halleck's tribute to his friend Drake, whose early death 
left his brother writer lonely, is one of the best known in litera- 
ture; one stanza in particular is deservedly famous for its 
simple, heartfelt feeling: 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Halleck was over-praised in his owti lifetime, and Drake 
under-praised; this was due in part to the current partiahty 
for stirring rapid verse of the Byronic order, such as we find 
in ''Marco Bozzaris,'^ which was inspired by events fresh in 
the minds of readers. While Halleck's verse has genuine 
human eualit:^^, that of Drake ai) his best -Has a finer, more 
dehcate texture, and greater melodj^. 

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867).— Of the minor New 
York writers the one who enjoyed the greatest popularity 
in his day was No P. Willis. He was born in Portland, Maine, 
educated at Yale, and began his career on a magazine in Bos- 
ton, where his father had founded a rehgious newspaper and, 
in 1827, the YoutWs Companion. Growing dissatisfied with 
his Puritan surroundings, young Willis went to New York 
and became one of the editors of the New York Mirror. This 
was the periodical with which for a time Edgar Allan Poe 
was connected and in which ''The Raven" was first pubhshed. 
With this magazine and the Home Journal of the same city 
Willis held editorial positions, along with George P. Morris, 
until hi£ deat:". He spent five or gix years in Europe^ where 



142 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

he was a great social favorite, returning in 1836 with an Enghsh 
wife; he purchased an estate near Oswego, New York, which 
he called Glenmary. Later, he bought Idlewild on the Hud- 
son. From these two homes many of his sketches were con- 
tributed to the papers. While in Europe he had written a 
number of letters, sketches, and tales for New York periodi- 
cals. 

The w^orks of Willis consist mostly of several volumes of 
pleasing sketches, collected from the magazines, such as 
Pencillings hy the Way, Loiterings of Travel, Letters from Under 
a Bridge, and Out Doors at Idlewild; and a number of poems 
on Biblical themes — '^Hagar in the Wilderness," ^^Jepthah's 
Daughter," ^'Healing of the Daughter of Jairus," — besides 
some sentimental and satirical verses. Much of Wilhs's work 
was done simply to catch the passing fancy, and has perished 
from the memory; his more finished productions are readable 
to-day, though they offend modern taste by their studied 
artificiality of style — ^their too great straining after cleverness 
of phrase and their overdone simplicity. His sacred poems, 
for instance, once so much admired, suffer by comparison 
with the strong, musical, and severely simple prose of the 
narratives in the King James version of the Bible, of which 
they are metrical paraphrases. If, in reading them, one is 
able to forget the harmony of the originals, the poetical ver- 
sions are not unpleasing; but they seem rather superfluous 
to a generation which appreciates the Bible as hterature. 

Willis wrote in a day of '^annuals," elegant little souvenirs 
of sentimental trivialities in verse and prose for the old-fash- 
ioned center-table. The early half of the nineteenth century 
had its 'Tokens," ''Keepsakes," "Friendship's Garlands," 
"Forget-me-nots," and other Hterary bouquets. For these 
dainty social booklets Willis wrote a great deal of graceful 
verse. By nature he was somewhat foppish, and the super- 
ficial brilliancy of much that he wrote reveals his weaknesses. 
It must not be forgotten, hpwever,, that he rendered a real 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 143 

service to American letters in his praiseworthy efforts to give 
our early magazines a genuine literary flavor. 

Other Writers of the Period. — To the New York group belong several 
writers of less importance than those just considered: James Kirke 
Paulding (1778-1860), jomt author with Irving of the humorous Salma- 
gundi papers, and author of two or three clever satires in verse, several 
novels dealing with Dutch traditions on the Hudson and pioneer life, 
and a short life of Washington; his work is somewhat imitative of 
Irving's and Cooper's. Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879), though born 
and educated in Boston, was editor of a New York magazine for a while, 
and his earlier poems were published in the New York Review; his best 
known poems are "The Buccaneer" and "The Little Beach Bird," 
showing the influence of Coleridge and Wordsworth; he was also an 
acute literary critic, one of the best, indeed, of our periodical essayists. 
His son, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., wrote the popular book, long an 
American classic, Two Years Before the Mast (1840). John Howard 
Payne (1792-1852) was born in New York, spent some years in Boston, 
became playwright and actor, lived abroad, and died while United 
States Consul at Tunis; his remains were brought to Washington in 1883 
and buried there. Payne wrote several plays, the best of which is the 
tragedy Brutus; his one immortal song, "Home, Sweet Home," is in 
the opera Clari, the Maid of Milan (1823). Other writers of well-kno^Mi 
songs are Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842), author of "The Old Oaken 
Bucket" (1817); and George P. Morris (1802-1864), author of "Wood- 
man, Spare that Tree"; both were New York editors. 

Minor New England writers of this period were: James Gates Per- 
ciVAL (1795-1856), born in Coimecticut and educated at Yale, a man 
of remarkable versatility and, in his day, of considerable reputation. 
He was physician, teacher, scientist, and a respectable poet; he helped 
Noah Webster on his dictionary. Percival's best poems are "The Coral 
Grove" and "To Seneca Lake." John Pierpont (1785-1866), born in 
Coimecticut, educated at Yale, and for years a Unitarian minister in 
Boston, wrote "Warren's Address" and "The Pilgrim Fathers," fine 
patriotic poems. Washington Allston (1779-1843), great American 
painter, literary critic, and writer of graceful verse, was born in South 
Carolina, but spent most of his life in Boston. Mrs. Lydia Huntley 
SiGouRNEY (1791-1865) was a Connecticut school-teacher who wrote 
some fifty volumes of moral and domestic essays and verse, popular 
once but now relegated to the limbo of sentimental literature which 
made up the "annuals" and "gift-books" of our earlier national period. 
Samuel F. Smith (1808-1895), who lived near Boston, will be remembered 
V3 the author of our national hymn, "My Country, 'tis of thee." 



144 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



THE PERIOD IN OUTLINE 



LITERATURE 

Washington Irving (1783-1859): 
Sketches, Stories, Biography, 
History 

First famous American writer; 
pioneer of modern short story; 
creator of ''Knickerbocker 
Legend" 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851 ) : 
''Leatherstocking Tales" and 
Romances of the Sea 

Creator of the romance of the 
American forest, the American 
historical novel and sea tale 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) : 
Thanatopsis, To a Waterfowl, 
Forest Hymn, To a Fringed 
Gentian, etc. 

First notable American poet; inter- 
preter of serious aspects of 
nature in noble blank verse 

MINOR WRITERS 

Joseph Rodman Drake: The Cul- 
prit Fay 

Fitz-Greene Halleck: Marco Boz- 
zaris 

Nathaniel P. Willis: Poems, 
Sketches 



HISTORY 

Florida Region purchased from 
Spain, 1819 



Monroe Doctrine, 1823 



Erie Canal opened, 1825 



First Railroad in United States, 
1830 



Morse Telegraph in operation 
(Baltimore and Washington) 1844 



Mexican War, 1846-'47 



Discovery of Gold in California, 

1848 



Literary interest centers about the Hudson River and Otsego Lake 
regions; prose and poetry reflect more distinctively American subjects; 
sketches and romances of mountain, forest, and sea. 



SOME USEFUL BOOKS 

HistoricaL— Burgess's The Middle Period, 1817-1858; Sparks's Expan- 
sion of the American People; Coman's Industrial History of the United 
States; Hitchcock's The Louisiana Purchase; Drake's Making of the; 
Great West; Roosevelt's Winning of the West. 



THE KNICKERBOCKER OR NEW YORK GROUP 145 

Literary. — Chapters in Richardson's, Wendell's, and Trent's American 
Literatures; Cairns's Development of American Literature, 1815-1833. 

Irving. — Pierre M. Irving's Life and Letters of Washington Irving; 
Warner's Life of Irving (American Men of Letters); Payne's Leading 
American Essayists. — The works of Irving may be had in numerous 
inexpensive editions; The Sketch Book, Life of Goldsmith, and other works 
are to be found in good school editions. 

Cooper. — Lounsbury's Life of Cooper (American Men of Letters); 
Clymer's James Fenimore Cooper (Beacon Biographies); Brownell's 
American Prose Masters; Erskine's Leading American Novelists. The 
Last of the Mohicans and other ''Leather-stocking Tales" may be found 
in various series of school classics and in ''Everyman's Library." 

Bryant. — Godwin's Life of Bryant (standard authority); Bigelow's 
Life of Bryant (American Men of Letters); Bradley's Life of Bryant 
(English Men of Letters) ; Stedman's Poets of America; Burton's Literary 
Leaders of America; Alden's Studies in Bryant (American Book Co.) 
The standard edition of Bryant's Poems is published by D. Appleton 
& Co.; his translation of Homer by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Page's 
Chief American Poets (Houghton) contains the best of his poems. 

Selections from all writers of the period may be found in Stedman and 
Hutchinson's Library of American Literature; selections from the poets 
in Stedman's American Anthology and Bronson's American Poems. 



CHAPTER FOUR 
THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 

Material Development. — The second quarter of the nine- 
teenth century was a period of great material development in 
the United States and of marked social reforms in Europe. 
These reforms had little immediate influence in this country 
because we were too busy with the material and political 
upbuilding of our great American Commonwealth to do much 
else. Under the stimulus of inventions our growth was rapid 
and our prosperity great; commerce was quickened by the 
building of railroads, telegraph lines, cotton and woolen mills, 
and by the steady tide of immigration westward. The steam- 
ship meant frequent communication with Europe and the 
bringing into America of foreign races; victory in the Mexican 
War enlarged our southwestern frontier; the discovery of gold 
in Cahfornia opened the Pacific slope to the eastern pioneer and 
furnished a new road to wealth. This material prosperity was 
accompanied, as often happens in history, by an intellectual 
awakening. 

The New England Awakening. — Since the middle of the 
eighteenth century, as we have seen, New England had ceased 
to be prominent in literary activity. The leadership in letters 
had passed to Philadelphia and New York. The old Puritanism 
of the Mathers and Jonathan Edwards had lost its vitality, 
and the new forces were slow in germinating and coming to 
fruition; the dead hand of an outworn creed chilled the genius 
of several generations of New Englanders. Meanwhile, the 
Revolutionary War came on, and the thought and energy of 
the best men were turned to making a nation and not a litera- 
ture; in both the North and the South the political essay and 
oration formed for a time the staple of the literary output. 

[146] 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS - 147 

Then arose the tribe of raagazine writers and the few important 
figures of the Knickerbocker Group. 

About 1840, however, it was evident that a new era had 
fully dawned in New England and that Massachusetts had 
regained her ascendency in literature. The awakening was 
both intellectual and spiritual — a protest against mental, 
rehgious, and physical bondage, and an almost impassioned 
assertion of freedom from the shackles of tradition. This 
remarkable movement, which has given to America her most 
distinguished group of writers, • centered in Boston and the 
quiet village of Concord. At bottom it was an expression of 
a pervading spirit of hberahsm, tending toward practical 
reform. In general it has come to be known as the ^'Trans- 
cendental Movement"; but there are three fairly well-defined 
phases, and it will make for clearness to treat them separately. 
Unitarianism is the religious phase, Transcendentalism proper 
the philosophic and literary, and Anti-Slavery, or Abolition, 
the political and social. All three entered into the making of 
New England Hterature. 

Unitarianism. — Unitarianism was a reaction against the old 
Puritan orthodoxy; it was liberahsm in religion. The stern 
Calvinistic creed of the earlier divines had, so the newer genera- 
tion felt, made the spiritual and mental life of New England 
narrow and dark by its insistence on such doctrines as total 
depravity, eternal damnation, and predestination. It stressed 
the evil in human nature and doomed the majority of men to 
destruction; the new teaching emphasized the innate nobihty 
of human nature and magnified the worth of the individual. 
Man was no longer to be regarded as a despised worm of the 
dust, the object of divine wrath, * ^crawling between earth and 
heaven'* in apologetic humility, but rather as an aspiring son 
of heaven, free to think and to act. This view of course digni- 
fied the human conscience, while the traditional orthodoxy, 
according to Unitarian thinking, degraded it. The main 
conteixtion of the liberals, therefore — aside from the purely 



148 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

theological aspect of the question, which does not fall within 
the province of a history of literature — was for freedom of 
thought and conscience. 

This religious controversy split the New England Congrega- 
tionalists into two factions, the conservatives and the radicals, 
and colored the thought and the literature of that section for 
the next generation. The Unitarian impulse, let it be re- 
membered, was simply a protest against what was regarded as 
mental and spiritual slavery, and a plea for the return into 
religion of the light of reason and intuition. Large numbers 
of the thinking and cultured people of New England gave their 
allegiance to the movement, and Harvard University became 
the intellectual center of Unitarian influence; while the con- 
servative adherents of the old orthodoxy made Andover 
Theological Seminary their stronghold. Most of the Mas- 
sachusetts writers, as we shall see, were sympathizers with 
the new movement and reflected its spirit directly or indirectly 
in their prose and poetry. 

The leader of the progressives was William Ellery Chan- 
NiNG (1780-1842), the Unitarian minister of Boston. He was 
born at Newport, Rhode Island, educated at Harvard, and 
spent his life, except for two years of tutoring in Virginia, in 
and about Boston. Frail in body, serene in spirit, persuasive 
in utterance, C banning is the most attractive personahty among 
the early Unitarians and a spiritual forerunner of Emerson. 
He appealed not so much by the force of his logic or by the 
graces of oratory as by the ''sweetness and hght" of his message 
and the moral earnestness of a serious and lofty soul. Had he 
given himself to literature rather than to the discussion of 
theological questions, vital interest in which has died out with 
the advancing years, American letters would doubtless have 
had another singularly gifted prose essayist. Even as it is, 
some of his sermons and controversial essays are still read 
for their charm pf style and their high thought, a tribute which 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS • 149 

is seldom paid to theologians; while his critical essays on 
Napoleon and Milton are real contributions to hterature. 

Channing's famous sermon at the ordination of Jared Sparks 
in Baltimore in 1819 was a declaration of the new principles 
which he explained and defended for nearly forty years. He 
was not an aggressive leader — indeed, some of the radicals 
thought him timid — ^nor was he as intense as Jonathan Edwards, 
the apostle of the old order; but he carried conviction by his 
devout presence and the clear and strong current of his thoughts. 
A short selection from the sermon just mentioned will serve 
to show how different his views were from those of Edwards, 
and will at the same time illustrate the clear simphcity of his 
style at its best and prove his kinship to Emerson : 

We must start in religion from our oVkTi souls. In these is the fountain 
of all divine truth. An outward revelation is only possible and intelligi- 
ble on the ground of conceptions and principles previously furnished 
by the soul. Here is our primitive teacher and light. Let us not dis- 
parage it. There are, indeed, philosophical schools of the present day, 
who tell us that we are to start in all our speculations from the Absolute, 
the Infinite. But we rise to these conceptions from the contemplation 
of our own nature. The only God whom our thoughts can rest on, and 
our hearts can cling to, and our consciences can recognize, is the God 
whose image dwells in our own souls. Many, indeed, think that they 
can learn God from marks of design and skill in the outward world; but 
our ideas of design and skill, of a determining cause, of an end or pur- 
pose, are derived from consciousness, from our own souls. Thus the 
soul is the spring of our knowledge of God. 

In this twentieth century such statements would occasion 
little remark; a hundred years ago they not only gave rise to 
much discussion, but to many heartburnings as well. And 
yet the thoughtful reader will perceive that William Ellery 
Channing was a spiritual descendant of Jonathan Edwards on 
the mystic side. 

Transcendentalism. — The greatest force back of the literary 
revival in New England in the second quarter of the nineteenth 



150 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

century was the ' 'transcendental movement" proper, closely 
related to the religious phase just considered, but more philo- 
sophic and less easily defined. ' 'Transcendent ahsm'' was a 
term applied to that rather vague form of philosophy which 
is concerned with those truths that ''transcend,'^ or go beyond, 
human experience, or the senses. In our everyday hves we 
deal with facts known to us through our five senses, and with 
ideas — ^just as real as these facts — beyond the reach of our senses. 
Beyond the realm of sense and thought proper there are unseen 
forces which control our lives often more truly than those we 
can see and understand. These transcendent truths are 
called intuitions, or innate ideas, which one cannot explain, 
but which one acts on in fife as confidently as if they belonged 
to sense or reason. He who sees and beheves in the things in 
the realm beyond experience, making them real to himself, is 
an idealist. Now, the transcendentalists were idealists, and 
their philosophy is only a form of ideahsm. That is as near 
accuracy as we can get. To be very accurate is not to be 
transcendental; an exact definition of transcendentahsm is 
impossible. It is not a formal philosophy. 

The ideahstic philosophy kno^vn as transcendentalism had 
its origin in Germany with Kant, who maintained that beyond 
ordinary knowledge and experience there is a higher sphere of 
intuitive ideas. This teaching goes back to the Greek 
philosopher Plato, father of all idealists. From Germany 
transcendentalism passed to England through the essays of 
Carlyle and Coleridge, both enthusiastic students of German 
thought; and from England it reached this country largely 
through Emerson and other disciples of the EngUsh interpreters 
of the Germans. Transcendentahsm was the opposite of 
materialism in all its phases. It utterly repudiated the teach- 
ing of John Locke, the seventeenth century Enghsh philosopher, 
that knowledge comes only through the senses and is therefore 
limited by experience. The transcendentalists asserted, on 
the contrary, that there is an "inner light'' to every individual 
i^ouL 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 151 

The movement began in Concord, Massachusetts, about 
1836, when a number of young enthusiasts met informally 
from time to time to read and discuss German philosophy. 
This group came to be knoTVTi as the ''Transcendental Club." 
Among the members were Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, 
Ripley, Alcott, James Freeman Clarke, and Theodore Parker — 
all sincerely devoted to the new gospel of plain hving and 
high thinking, which made the ''Concord School" the most 
celebrated group of idealists in America. 

To the practical mind of that day the transcendentalists 
seemed a set of visionaries, wath their heads in the clouds and 
their thoughts up among the moonbeams. Their talk was 
more or less incomprehensible, their theories "transcendental 
moonshine," and their radiant air-castles "pinnacled dim in the 
intense inane." Of their ideal communities Lowell remarked 
that "everything was to be common but common sense." 
Dickens, on his first visit to America in 1842, was told when in 
Boston that "whatever was unintelligible would certainly be 
transcendental."^ Among these New England ideahsts there 
were, indeed, some apostles of the "new views" who made 
themselves ridiculous by their eccentric dress and manners, 
and by their "Orphic utterances," which even the initiated 
could scarcely understand. Numerous "isms" sprang up, 
special "revelations" were reported, fantastic schemes of social 
reform were advocated, and the return to nature and the simple 
life was enthusiastically urged upon the faithful. 

But in spite of their vagaries of one kind and another, the 
transcendentahsts as a whole had many virtues, and the 
ideahsm which they preached and practised was a tonic force 
in American life. "There was a keener scrutiny of institutions 
and domestic hfe than any we had known," says Emerson, 
the central figure and the sanest exponent of transcendentalism ; 
"there was sincere protesting against existing evils, and there 



See Dickens's American Notes. 



152 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

were changes of employment dictated by conscience. No 
doubt there was plentiful vaporing, and excess of backsliding 
might occur. But in each of these movements emerged a good 
result, a tendency to the adoption of simpler methods and an 
assertion of the sufficiency of the private man." ^ Two direct, 
tangible results of the ''transcendental movement" were The 
Dial and Brook Farm, which merit brief notice. 

The Dial (1840-1844).— The transcendental ists felt the need 
of a periodical in which to express their views, and accordingly 
in July, 1840, the first issue of The Dial appeared. It was a 
quarterly, published in Boston, with Margaret Fuller as the 
first editor and Ralph Waldo Emerson as the second and last. 
The contributors were the members of the 'Transcendental 
Club," the most important, besides the two editors, being 
Thoreau, Ripley, Theodore Parker, and Bronson Alcott. 
Alcott furnished for its pages his "Orphic sayings," which, 
if clear to himself, were generally unintelligible to others. For 
two years Margaret Fuller bravely edited The Dial in the 
face of many discouragements; then Emerson carried on the 
work for two years, when for lack of financial support it was 
discontinued. The earlier numbers are better than the later; 
the articles tended to become painfully long and diffuse, and 
the philosophy hopelessly vague. "You begin to feel," says 
Professor Barrett Wendell, ^^as if each writer would have hked 
to write the whole thing himself. The Dial begins with an 
auroral glow, which soon fades into a rather bewildering mist."^ 

The Dial deserves to be remembered, however, as the first 
periodical in America with a purely ideal purpose; it helped the 
tone of American literature and it gave an impetus as well as a 
new direction to creative energy. To this magazine Emerson 
contributed several of his best poems and early essays, while 
Thoreau really began his career as a writer for its columns. A 



^•The New England Reformers." 

2 Wendell's A Literary History of A?nerica, p. 303. 



THE NEW ENGLAND \yRITERS 153 

few words should be said about the remarkable woman who 
was its first editor. 

The most gifted woman writer among the transcendentalists 
was Margaret Fuller (1810-1850). She was born in Cam- 
bridge, carefully educated, began early to v/rite, eagerly em- 
braced the new doctrines of the circle at Concord, was the 
center of an intellectual coterie invited to her house for con- 
versations on literary and philosophical themes, and an essayist 
and letter-writer of note. The Platonic friendship between 
herself and Emerson during her residence in Concord is one of 
the few beautiful associations of the kind in literature. After 
the failure of The Dial Miss Fuller became literary critic of 
the New York Tribune on Horace Greeley's invitation; two or 
three years later she went to Italy, where in 1847 she married 
the Marquis Ossoli, an Italian patriot. Italy was at this time 
in the throes of her long struggle for liberty, and in this Margaret 
Fuller and her husband were deeply interested. The Ossolis, 
\Aih. their child, left Italy for America, virtually exiles; when 
the ship was almost in sight of New York, a violent storm 
arose, and all three perished. Of Margaret Fuller's writings, 
which fill four volumes, the Papers on Literature and Art 
(1846) may be mentioned as perhaps the best. 

Brook Farm (1841-1847).— The Brook Farm Community 
was an attempt to put into practice some of the views of the 
transcendentahsts as set forth in The Dial. The leader of the 
enterprise was George Ripley, the Unitarian clergyman of 
Boston, who, -^dth other ardent social reformers, purchased 
about two hundred acres of land at West Roxbury, nine miles 
from Boston, for the purpose of establishing an ideal community. 
Besides Ripley, the principal members were Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne, Charles A. Dana, afterwards editor of the New York 
Sun, and George Wilham Curtis, well knoTVTi later as critic 
and magazine editor. Hawthorne withdrew at the end of a 
year; Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Horace Greeley were 
interested visitors, though not members. The active mem- 



154 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

bership included about one hundred and fifty persons; visitors, 
drawn thither through curiosity or genuine interest, were both 
numerous and annoying. In 1846 fire destroyed one of the 
main buildings, and after another year of struggle the Brook 
Farm settlement dissolved. 

The purpose of the experiment was to promote a spirit of 
co-operation, to emphasize the dignity of labor, and to make 
mutually helpful and attractive the simple life. Each member 
was to do a certain amount of daily work; a school was to be 
established and Hterature and science studied along with agri- 
cultural pursuits. Like all more or less Utopian communities, 
Brook Farm failed; it proved, however, an interesting object- 
lesson in ideahsm, and it furnished pleasing material for several 
writers. Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance reflects the higher 
life of the commimity, while his American Note Books give 
entertaining glimpses of his owti and his fellow Brook-farmers' 
experiences as agricultural amateurs and social reformers. 

Abolitionism. — The third phase of the New England awaken- 
ing was the Abohtion movement, or anti-slavery agitation, 
which is reflected in the works of most of the New England 
writers. As an influence in literature this movement was of 
course an outcome of the general passion for democracy which, 
in the first half of the nineteenth century, affected the Enghsh- 
speaking world. Social reform of one kind or another is the 
theme of numerous Enghsh novels and of much poetry. Before 
the middle of the century slaves had been set free in all the 
British possessions. Slavery continued in the Southern 
States because it was profitable and because it was regarded 
as an indispensable part of the social system. In the North 
it had long ceased to be industrially desirable; in the South 
it was a matter of vested rights, and so recognized by the 
great majority of the people of the North. There had always 
existed in the South some opposition to the institution of 
slavery on moral 'grounds, and here and there a master had 
freed his slaves; the system, however, had become traditional 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 155 

and apparently necessary, and was held to be within local and 
personal rights. It formed a part of the feudal social order 
which hngered longest in the conservative South where planta- 
tion life prevailed. 

By 1840 a rather aggressive opposition to slavery had de- 
veloped in New England, and this rapidly grew into radical 
proportions and assumed a miUtant character. Such agitators 
as William Lloyd Garrison, who violently attacked slavery in 
his paper The Liberator, and Wendell PhiUips, the leading 
orator of the anti-slavery movement, gradually aroused the 
New England conscience to the point of action. This radical 
attitude was for a long time bitterly condemned in the North 
among the higher classes, and the abohtionists suffered social 
ostracism and in some cases actual violence. The practical 
difficulties of abolishing the institution were freely recognized 
by thoughtful New Englanders: the confiscation of property, 
though it consisted of human beings, appeared indefensible; 
the interference Tvdth the internal affairs of other states was 
held to be unjustifiable. Various compromises were suggested 
by statesmen like Clay and Webster, and in this way the 
inevitable conflict was delayed for years. Patience on both 
sides was finally exhausted. Secession, never an agriseable 
alternative to all the Southern states, ^ became at last a fact 
and the country during the years from 1861 to 1865 was con- 
vulsed with war. 

With the North the slavery agitation was mainly a moral 
question, growing out of that hereditary ardor for reform which 
characterized the Puritan conscience and which had its revival 
in the ideahsm of the movements just considered; with the 
South the matter of slavery was a question of property and 
traditional social rights, and as such was generally defended. 
The institution, however, being a survival of outgrown world- 
conditions and to that extent a social and pohtical anachronism, 
was doomed. Being a moral question, abohtion naturally 

^See Munford's Virginia's Attitude on Secession. 



156 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

entered into the making of New England literature, though not 
so extensively as might be supposed. With the exception of 
Whittier, the foremost New England writers were not radical 
abolitionists, as we shall soon see; most of them wrote against 
slavery, but were not sufficiently partisan to become agitators, 
feehng that they had other messages to dehver to their own 
and succeeding generations. 

Of all the books and pamphlets connected with the abolition 
movement one deserves mention because of its contemporary 
influence and the literary quality which has kept it ahve as a 
minor contribution to American letters — Mrs. Stowe's Uncle 
Tom's Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), born in 
Lichfield, Connecticut, was daughter of Reverend Lyman 
Beecher and sister of Henry Ward Beecher; she was carefully 
educated by her father, a Congregationalist minister, and mar- 
ried Reverend Calvin Stowe, professor in Lane Theological 
Seminary, Cincinnati, of which her father was for a number of 
years president. Later, Dr. Stowe was a professor in Bowdoin 
College, Maine, and in Andover Theological Seminary. Dur- 
ing her residence in Cincinnati, Mrs. Stowe visited friends in 
Kentuck}^; out of observations there, but more from her read- 
ing and conversations, she gained material for her one famous 
book. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was written in Brunswick, Maine, in 
1851-'52, and published serially in the National Era, an 
anti-slavery periodical of Washington. When put into book 
form, it had a wide sale in the North and in Europe; a half 
million copies are said to have been sold in five years; it was 
dramatized, and is still sometimes seen on the stage. The 
work provoked much adverse criticism in the South, where it 
was asserted that the pictures of conditions in the slave states 
were distorted, and that the writer made a general apphcation 
of exceptional abuses. Whatever one may think of the art of 
the book, which has crudities of style and sensational spots of 
melodrama, or of the truth of the portrayal of negro life in 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 157 

slave days, the story has a certain amount of human interest, 
wholly aside from its purposeful intention. The early success 
of Uncle Tom's Cabin is largely explained, of course, by its 
appeal to an agitated pubhc mind; it was written at the 
psychological moment in a great national crisis as an expression 
of the sentiment of an individual who voiced at the same time 
that of the abolitionists. To the reader of to-day, however, 
Mrs. Stowe's Old-Town Folks, dealing with a subject much 
more familiar to her — New England village life — seems to have 
more literary merit. 

After this preliminary discussion of the literary awakening 
in New England and its causes, w^e may now proceed to con- 
sider the principal writers. For the sake of clearness and 
convenience they may be divided into the following groups: 
(1) The Concord Group, (2) The Cambridge Group, (3) The 
Historians and the Orators. The poet Whittier belongs to no 
one of these groups. As Concord and Cambridge were the 
most conspicuous centers of literary activity, it seems best to 
treat first of the essayists and poets who did most of their work 
at one or the other of these places. 

THE CONCORD GROUP 

The village of Concord, twenty miles from Boston, is famous 
as the home of the transcendentalists. Here lived for most of 
his Hfe Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, poet, and philosopher; 
here Henry D. Thoreau, essayist and nature lover, spent his 
hfe; and here for a number of years Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
romancer, made his home. 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882) 

His Life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, descendant of a line of clergymen 
and scholars, was born in Boston, May 25, 1803, son of William Emerson, 
minister of the First Unitarian Church of that city. The Emersons 
were of good old Puritan stock, people of culture and refinement, who 



158 . AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in the religious changes in New England had accepted the more liberal 
form of faith. The mother of Ralph Waldo Emerson was a woman of 
serene and beautiful character, and from her he must have inherited 
some of his most distinctive traits; it was she, indeed, who brought 
him up, for his father died when the boy was only eight years old, leaving 
five children, the care of whom devolved upon the strong, sacrificing 
woman. Emerson went to the Boston Latin School, then to Harvard, 
graduating in 1821. He was a good, though not a brilliant student; 
mathematics he did not like; rhetoric and oratory appealed to him, 
and he was a wide reader. He seems to have impressed his schoolmates 
as an exceptional boy — "angelic and remarkable," one of them said of 
him. This does not mean that he was a prig, but that there was about 
the boy a certain spiritual quality which in a sense detached him from 
his fellows and at the same time won their love. 

For four years following his graduation Emerson taught school. Over 
his pupils the young pedagogue, not yet twenty when he began teaching, 
appears to have had complete command, controlling them without 
effort simply by the calmness and restraint of an engaging personality. 
He did not punish except with words, which were quite sufficient either 
to restrain or to stimulate. One of his pupils remembers "& peculiar 
3ook in his eyes, as if he saw something beyond what seemed to be in 
the field of vision." From school-teaching Emerson, as was perfectly 
natural for a descendant of ministers, turned to the study of theology 
at the Harvard Divinity School, where he remained for three years. A 
trip to the South for his health, during which he preached in Charleston 
and elsewhere, was followed by further preaching experience in North- 
ampton, Concord, and Boston. In 1829 he became associate minister 
of the Second Unitarian Church of Boston, the ''Old North Church," 
of which Reverend Henry Ware was the head. This same year he 
married Miss Ellen Tucker a woman of rare beauty and charm; three 
years later Mrs. Emerson died of consumption. By 1832 Emerson had 
certain conscientious scruples against administering the Lord's Sup- 
per; in a sermon that year he frankly stated his views, which were con- 
trary to those of the church, and resigned. He parted from the con- 
gregation in friendliness and good Tvill. He had now to find a new work. 

In 1833 Emerson visited Europe, making a tour of Sicily, Italy, parts 
of France and of Great Britain. He was less impressed by the scenery 
and the places of historic interest than by the men of letters whom he 
met — Landor, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle. With the last 
he formed a friendship which lasted through life. Carlyle was then 
living in his lonely retreat, Craigenputtoch, in the Scottish moors, 
and the young American's visit was a cheering experience to him and 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



159 




EALPH WALDO EMERSON 



160 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

his gifted wife. Between the two men, alike in their spiritual enthu- 
siasms though unlike in temperament, a correspondence began, after 
Emerson's return, which was stimulating to both. Indeed, it was 
through his Concord friend that the earlier works of the Scotchman 
were first published and extensively read in America. 

Emerson now settled down at Concord and gave himself to lecturing 
and writing. It was the day of the 'lyceum lecture course" in nearly 
every town and village, the predecessor of the present-day ''university 
extension course." Beginning with lectures on natural history and his 
travels, he soon chose more abstract themes of ethical and literary 
value, and on these he prepared discourses or wrote essays. For the 
next thirty or forty years he supported himself in part, at least, by 
lecturing; some of his trips extended into the South and the West. His 
serene presence and the lofty idealism of his utterances, despite his some- 
what awkward manner, held his audiences, who overlooked his absent- 
mindedness, his losing of his place in the manuscript, and his hesitations, 
because they saw in him the embodiment of moral earnestness and in 
his language a rare poetic beauty. At home in Concord he was a kind 
and considerate neighbor in the square, old-fashioned white house, 
whither he brought his second wife in 1835. 

Here he lived until his death. Another trip to Europe was made in 
1847-'48, during which he lectured in England. In 1871 he went as far 
west as California, a considerable undertaking in that day. The last 
journey abroad followed the burning of his house in 1872, partly for 
relief from the shock and for the benefit of his health in general. On 
his return the next year his neighbors met him at the station with car- 
riages, music, and flowers, and in a triumphal procession escorted him 
to the house which they had restored for him in his absence. In all 
these years various worldly honors had come to the philosopher: Har- 
vard conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1866; he spoke 
before many societies and colleges; in 1874 he was nominated for the 
Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University against the Earl of Beacons- 
field, and received five hundred votes to the Englishman's seven hun- 
dred, a remarkable honor for an American. One of his last addresses 
was that before the literary societies of the University of Virginia in 
1876. 

Even before the burning of his home in 1872, Emerson's friends had 
noticed a weakening of his physical powers, which showed itself most 
perceptibly in lapses of memory. He forgot faces and names, and for 
ten years before his death he was fully himself only at times. At Long- 
fellow's funeral, not a great while before his own, he looked intently 
at the face of the dead poet and said to a friend near him; "That gentle- 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



161 



man was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I have entirely forgotten his name." 
The twilight deepened until the end came peacefully on April 27, 1882. 
He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord; a huge granite 
boulder marks the tomb, and on its rough-hewn face, following Emer- 
son's name, is the inscription, taken from his own poem, "The Problem" : 

The passive Master lent his hand 

To the vast soul that o'er him planned. 




His Personality. — Emerson was tall and slender, with the 
face and manner of a 
scholar. His features, 
as one may see in his 
pictures, were refined 
and his expression se- 
date, calm, and kindly. 
In his countenance there 
was a rare serenity. 
"There was majesty 
about him," says Lo- 
well, "beyond all other 
men I have known, and 
he habitually dwelt in "^ 
that ampler and diviner r 
air to w^hich most of us, 
if ever, only rise in 
spurts." Simplicity 
characterized his habits of life. He had little of the traditional 
Yankee ingenuity: he said he could split a shingle four ways 
with one nail; his little son, seeing him handle a spade rather 
awkwardly, called out, "Take care, papa, — you will dig your 
leg." He is said to have had remarkable patience and a good 
temper; he endured with equanimity the visits of the curious. 
There is general agreement as to his gracious manner and 
his sincerity; children loved him and Concord farmers Hked 
to talk with him, though they did not comprehend all he 
said. 



EMERSON'S GRAVE 

Concord, Mass. 



162 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There was, withal, an indefinable charm about Emerson's 
personality. His smile has been called angelic. And yet he 
was not without a touch of native shrewdness that saved him 
from wild schemes of reform; he had too much common sense 
to follow the fantastic notions of some of his fellow trans- 
cendentalists. His reserve kept him a little aloof, so that 
he had not many intimate friends. The admiration he excited 
among those who agreed with him as well as among those who 
did not, is an evidence of the fascination of an unworldly 
nature, in which there was a suggestion of the seer and the 
mystic. ''It was good,'' says Hawthorne, ''to meet him in 
the wood-paths or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure 
intellectual gleam diffused about his presence like the garment 
of a shining one." 

His Essays. — Emerson's prose works consist for the most 
part of essays and addresses. Even when a volume is made 
up of chapters and the whole called Nature, or English Traits, 
or The Conduct of Life, or Society and Solitude, each chaper is 
simply an essay on some phase of the general subject considered 
more or less abstractly. The earliest volume is entitled Nature, 
and appeared in 1836; the headings of some of the chapters are 
^'Beauty," "Discipline," "Idealism," "Spirit." The same 
method is pursued in later works, such as The Conduct of Life 
(1860) and Society and Solitude (1870). The most concrete 
prose work is that called English Traits (1856), a series of 
chapters on the characteristics of the English people as observed 
by Emerson on his lecture tour in England and Scotland in 
1847-'48. Representative Men (1850) is a group of estimates of 
the characters, teachings, and influence of great personages — 
Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Goethe; 
this volume, originally lectures in Great Britain, suggests 
Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship. It is evident, therefore, 
that the essay-form was Emerson's favorite method, whether 
he named his effort an "essay" or a "lecture." Indeed, his 
essays were mostly adaptations of his lectures. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 163 

The first notable utterance of Emerson was his Phi Beta 
Kappa address on ''The American Scholar," delivered at 
Harvard in 1837. In this famous speech he pleads for a more 
generous and a more original culture in America. The time 
has come, he says, to speak and think for ourselves; what is 
needed in literature and in thought is the boldness to break 
with tradition and freely to act on our otvti intuitions. He 
exhorted young men to do their ot\ti thinking; he assured them 
that imitation is suicide; he summoned them as with a trumpet 
call to a newer freedom: 

We will walk on our otsti feet; we will work with our own hands; we 
will speak our own minds. ... A nation of men will for the first time 
exist, because each believes himfeelf inspired by the Divine Soul which 
also inspires all men. 

This remarkable address was epoch-making; Holmes calls it 
''our intellectual Declaration of Independence." Lowell has 
told us of the scene as one "always to be treasured in the 
memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What 
crowded and breathless aisles, w^hat windows clustering with 
eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence 
of foregone dissent." To the yoimger part of the audience 
"The American Scholar" was an inspiring message; among the 
conservative it aroused dissent, which was emphasized by the 
"Divinity School Address" the next year. One thing was 
clear, however — a new oracle had appeared. 

Far more startling to his hearers and readers was the 
"Divinity School Address," delivered in the summer of 1838 
before the senior class of the Harvard Divinity School. In 
this Emeison makes a strong plea for the right of the individual 
soul as an interpreter of religion, without reliance on historical 
creeds or other outward forms. The conservative Unitarians 
were shocked at what seemed the destructive tendencies of the 
address, and a somewhat violent controversy followed, in 
which, however, Emerson himself took no part. The opening 



164 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

sentences of the ''Divinity School Address" form a prose poem 
on nature, refreshing as the breath of summer : 

In this refulgent summer it has been a luxury to draw the breath of 
life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with 
fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet 
with the breath of the pine, the balm of Gilead, and the new hay. Night 
brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the 
transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man 
under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool 
night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes for the 
^.rimson dawTi. 

For the general reading public the two volumes entitled 
Essays, published respectively in 1841 and 1844, have meant 
more than all the rest of Emerson's prose works. The first 
series includes essays on ''History," "Self -Reliance," "Com- 
pensation," "Spiritual Law^s," "Friendship," ''The Over-Soul," 
"Circles"; the second series contains essays on "The Poet," 
"Experience," "Character," "Manners," "Gifts." Those m 
the first volume have probably become more famihar to readers 
than the others. The themes, it will be observed, are all 
abstract, and some of them carry a mystic suggestion. There 
is little or no logical sequence in the development of the subject. 
The sentence and not the paragraph is virtually the unit of 
the structure, and each sentence is "rammed with thought." 
The power of condensation is carried to the Hmit; consequently 
many of the statements resemble inspired, oracular utterances, 
with an air of finality; they are axiomatic spiritual deliverances. 
There is no argument, — ^no proposition is laid doT\TL and de- 
veloped; all moves on in a high atmosphere; spirit calls to 
spirit. These essays resemble Bacon's in their compression of 
language and their aphoristic manner, but they scorn the 
appeal to mere worldly wisdom which runs through those of 
the great Elizabethan; they are endlessly stimulating in their 
clear idealism. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 165 

The will is energized, the imagination fired, the mental 
curiosity aroused by sentences hke these: 

Insist on yourself; never imitate. 

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. 

Every man's task is his life-preserver. 

Hitch your wagon to a star. 

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. 

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. 

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. 

W^hat your heart thinks great, is great. 

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. 

Greatness always appeals to the future. 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. 

You begin reading one of Emerson's essays, pencil in hand; 
you come upon a striking thought, and you mark it; then upon 
another, and you mark that; you soon find that you are marking 
so many sentences that the unmarked ones are becoming more 
conspicuous; you give up in despair. You say to yourself as 
you read: '^That's my ovm thought, which I have never been 
able to express; I recognize my intuition here." Thus this 
ideahst has found you out. You may not imderstand all that 
he says; no matter; the challenge is there, and you follow on 
fascinated by the mystery. And so Emerson was able to take 
an unpromising abstract theme, on which none but genius 
could speak with originality, and make it fresh and vital. To 
many an imaginative and high-souled youth the first reading of 
these essays, with their incisive and authoritative tone, has 



166 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



proved epoch-making. Once assimilated, they exert a tonic 
effect upon the whole mental life; they bring enlargement of 
vision and spiritual enrichment. 

His Poetry. — Emerson did not publish a collection of his 
poems until 1846, when he was forty three, though many of 
them had been written long before that; several — ''The 
Problem,'' ''Woodnotes," "The Sphinx/' and two or three 
others — ^were published in The Dial, of which he was for a while 
the editor. Another volume of poems appeared in 1867. 




EMERSON'S HOME 
Concord, Mass. 



The comparative slowness in collecting his poems leads one to 
feel that Emerson was primarily concerned with prose as a 
mode of expression; in other words, that he could best deHver 
his message in the essay-form. As the essays were often built 
out of the lectures, they appear far more purposeful than the 
poems; some of them seem provincial, indeed, as if adapted to 
suit the conditions of New England thought. The poems, 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 167 

however, have a more highly sustained quality, more of the 
universal, and strike one as more spontaneous. 

Opinions vary as to the excellence of Emerson's verse. He 
said of his poetic gift: "I am born a poet, of a low class, without 
doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and my vocation." 
Matthew Arnold declines to regard him as a great poet, while 
Stedman speaks of him as ''our most typical and inspiring 
poet.'' Emerson is undoubtedly right when he says that by 
nature he is a poet; much of his prose is poetry in all save form. 
His prose is often undressed poetry: in the happy figure of 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is the difference between ''Cinderella 
at the fireside and Cinderella at the prince's ball."^ Take, 
for instance, these prose sentences from the "Works and Days": 

The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They come and go 
like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but 
they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry 
them as silently away. 

Compare with this the famous poem called "Days," in which, 
as Dr. Holmes says, we have the same thought "in full dress"; 

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, 

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 

And marching single in an endless file, 

Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 

To each they offer gifts after his will, 

Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all. 

I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, 

Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 

Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 

Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 

Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. 

We accordingly find in Emerson's poetry the same mystic 
feeling for nature, the same transcendental interpretation of 
human life, that we find in the essays, but in a more delicate 



1 Holmes's Life of Emerson, p. 313. 



168 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and ornamental form. The nature poems are so elevated in 
thought and imagery that they are almost spiritual. Gleams 
of rare and radiant light, as from some far-off star, filter through 
the lines into the reader's mind, calming the passions and 
giving serenity of spirit. The atmosphere is a little chilly, 
but it is very clear. The following lines are some of the best 
from poems on nature: 

O, tenderly the haughty day 
Fills his blue urn with fire. 

—From ''Concord Ode." 

Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 

Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
But it carves the bow of beauty there, 

And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. 

— From "Woodnotes." 

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being. 

—From "The Rhodora." 

The frolic architecture of the snow. 

-Frofu ''The Snow-Storm." 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
Where the evening star so holy shines, 
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man. 
At the sophist schools and the learned clan; 
For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet? 

—Frofn "Good-bye." 

Other lines, more humanly inspiring, the best of them 
illumined with spiritual insight, are these well-known verses 
which have long been parts of our poetic heritage : 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 169 

i 

j By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

! Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

1 Here once the embattled farmers stood 

j And fired the shot heard round the world. 

I — From ''Concord Hymn." 

One accent of the Holy Ghost 
I The heedless world hath never lost. 

—From "The Problem." 

What is excellent. 
As God lives, is permanent; 
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 
Heart's love will meet thee again, 

—From "Threnody." 

Heartily know, 
When half-gods go. 
The gods arrive, 

— From "Give All to Love." 

Tell men what they knew before; 
Paint the prospect from their door. 

— From "Fragments." 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thoii must, 
The youth replies, / can. 

— From "Voluntaries." 

Whatever one may think of Emerson's poetry as a whole, 
the passages just quoted surely entitle him to be called a 
genuine poet. His limitations are evident: his verse is intel- 
lectual and cold; it is sometimes obscure because of its care- 
less syntax or its remote allusiveness; occasionally the rhythm 
is faulty and the music broken; there is at times an apparent 
straining after paradox, and there is generally a lack of human 
warmth and simphcity. Still, when all has been said on the 
adverse side, the impressive fact remains that in Emerson's 



170 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

slender volume of verse we have an originality, a clearness, a 
gleaming light, which reveal a dehcate quahty of poetic genius 
second in American literature only to that of Poe. Such poems 
as 'The Problem," ''Concord Hj^nn,'' ''Woodnotes," "The 
Rhodora," 'The Humble-Bee," "The Snow-Storm,'^ "The 
Sphinx,'' and "Voluntaries," would rank high in any literature. 
The longest of the poems is "Threnody," an elegy on his httle 
son who died at the age of five. The tone is one of restrained 
passion, growing philosophically calm, and ending in serene 
cheerfulness; it has something of the sadness of the poetrj^ 
of Matthew Arnold, but "v^dthout the Englishman's hopeless- 
ness; it ends in hght and trust. The "Threnody" is the one 
fine elegy in our hterature. 

In his treatment of nature as well as in his ethical quality 
Emerson is akin to Bryant, but his serene, oracular manner, 
suggestive of an oriental high priest, is all his own. He is 
essentially a lyric poet and could not sustain himself in long 
flights. 

Literary Characteristics. — Emerson's sentences are independ- 
ent units, crisp and epigrammatic, reminding one of the "wisdom 
literature" of the Bible. He has what he called a "lapidary 
style"; the httle "stones" are skillfully worked into a mosaic 
of thought. "I build my house of boulders," said Emerson. 
Each sentence is "an infinitely repellent particle." He had a 
delicate ear for a fine phrase, and a gift for hitting upon the 
inevitable word. He often wrought out his sentences 
separately, jotted them down in his notebook, and when he 
was ready to prepare a lecture or an essay, he put them to- 
gether, with the result that there was unity of spirit rather 
than unity of thought. So he went on weaving his cloth of 
gold or building his palace of diamonds. The style is clear, 
except where the subject is more or less nebulous. It is 
eminently suggestive; we have a series of texts on each of which 
a philosophic sermon might be preached. The shining lucidity 
of Emerson's prose gives it distinction of literary form; its 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 171 

artistic quality is ever apparent to the ear attuned to subtle 
cadences. 

Emerson's Message. — Emerson had no system of philosophy. 
He was an ideahst, something of a mystic, steadied with the 
ballast of shrewd common sense. His writings show an affinity 
with the poetic idealism of Plato and German transcendentalism, 
but he does not attempt to formulate his views. He speaks 
out in oracular fashion, disclosing new facets of old truth and 
appealing to the intuitions. He has much to say of the ''over- 
soul," that all-pervading presence of the Deity in man and 
nature; to him ''the world is saturated with deity." This 
sounds pantheistic; in the higher utterances there is, indeed, a 
touch of Oriental mysticism; but, in the last analysis, it is an 
idealistic philosophy for practical life. The call is to the 
individual to be free, self-reliant, optimistic, to stand for the 
larger truth. Emerson could not be a partisan; naturally, 
he was an abolitionist, but he took no active part in that great 
movement. Social reform did not interest him as deeply 
as individual redemption. He is the greatest individualist 
in our literature. 

Emerson is above all things else a stimulator of thought and 
a tonic to the will. He is one of the noblest of teachers. 
Matthew Arnold calls him "the friend and aider of those who 
would live in the spirit." Against materialism in politics and in 
religion and in society he insistently protested. To the young 
in particular he brings a message of refreshing idealism: "Be 
yourself, trust your own deeper instincts, live in harmony 
with the higher law, think for yourself." Character is the 
central thing in education and in life. All this is set forth with 
telling power in the essay on "Self-Reliance," which every 
youth should carefully read. 

The influence of Emerson on his own time was immense; 
it is hardly too much to say that his lectures, essays, and 
personality did more than anything else to transform New 
England thought and tinge it with the colors of romance. Out 



172 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



of his teachings was born a new ideahsm. His contemporaries, 
Thoreau, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Lowell, owed much to 
him; indeed, the whole of American literature has felt the uphft 
of his serene and hopeful utterances. And to innumerable 
youths in the generations since his day the winged words of 
Emerson have come as an inspiriting message — an unimpas- 
sioned, but none the less compelling, exhortation to courageous 
thinking and greater nobility of life. 




HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862) 

,His Life. — Henry D. Thoreau, 
essayist, poet, and naturalist, was 
born in Concord, Massachusetts, 
in 1817, the only one of the main 
figures of the Concord Group who 
was a native of that village. 
Thoreau's ancestry was, as the 
name indicates, remotely French. 
His father was a pencil-maker, 
only fairly well-to-do, and young 
'^ Thoreau had partly to work his 

way through college and partly 

^, to depend upon scholarships, even 

%\ as his friend Emerson had done. 

\ He graduated at Harvard in 1837, 

where he was a moderately good 
student. After leaving college, he 
taught school for a while and then 
turned to surveying and the making 
of pencils for a living. These oc- 
cupations were not long continued, 
however, for Thoreau's tastes were simple and his wants few, and he 
found that with about six weeks of manual labor he could support him- 
self for a year. He occasionally lectured, read much, and wrote of the 
life around him. Above all else, he wanted to be independent and to 
live close to nature. 

Soon after his graduation Thoreau met Emerson, and the friendship 
then formed lasted through life; indeed, for two years the young disciple 
was an inmate of Emerson's home. In 1845 he built for himself a cabin 
on the shores of Waldeu Pond, a mile from Concord, and there spent 



V 



^^ 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 173 

over two years alone, studying nature, cultivating his patch of ground, 
and writing on his books. Here he enjoyed his quiet hours of reading 
and the free and simple pleasures of the woods. He was not a hermit, 
however; he made almost daily trips to the village and welcomed such 
friends as came out to his retreat. "My purpose in going to Walden 
Pond," said he, ''was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but 
to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles." Before 
this he and his brother had built a boat and journeyed in it up and down 
the Concord and Merrimac Rivers on a tour of exploration. The rest 
of Thoreau's life, after he deserted his hut, was spent quietly in and 
about Concord, with occasional trips through New England; he knew 
his native region thoroughly and deeply loved it. Outwardly his career 
was uneventful. In 1862 Thoreau died, and was buried in Sleepy Hollow 
Cemetery; his grave is not far from Emerson's. 

His Personality. — A somewhat eccentric, thoroughly original, 
independent sort of man, Thoreau was the most rugged and 
natural of the transcendentalists. He was a remarkably keen 
observer of nature, finding interest in the commonplace, seeing 
what other men usually pass over. For the secrets of nature 
he had almost microscopic eyes. He was able to turn his hand 
to anything: carpentering, whitewashing, gardening, surveying, 
were a few of his avocations. He read the Greek poets for 
pleasure, and there was probably no one in New England, 
except Greek professors, who knew them so well; certainly 
there was no one who was more lovingly familiar with them. 
He likewise knew the Enghsh classics, particularly the Eliza- 
bethan dramatists, and he had some acquaintance with Oriental 
literature. Intellectually Thoreau was a highly cultured man 
and an independent thinker. 

He was absolutely simple and sincere; children were fond of 
him and he loved to romp with them; with more sophisticated 
folk, men of the world, he had not much to do, preferring the 
farmers of Concord. In his manners and appearance there 
was the air of a man who loved the out-of-doors, who lived in 
the open, welcoming the rains and the sunshine, the friend of 
animals and trees and flowers. He was not wholly a recluse; 



174 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

retirement from towns and cities simply meant for him the 
free hf e ; he was not a cynic, but a poet-naturalist. 

Thoreau was, of course, a strong anti-slavery man on princi- 
ple. Refusing to pay his poll tax because it was levied by a 
government which permitted slavery, he was sent to jail. 
Emerson came to see him and asked in astonishment: ^' Henry, 
why are you here?" Thoreau immediately rephed: ''Why are 
you not here?'' More of a partisan than his seer friend, he wel- 
comed an opportunity to suffer for convictions, however remote 
the connection between taxation in Massachusetts and slavery 
in the South might be. 

The entire Hfe of Thoreau is a consistent illustration of his 
own saying that *'a man is rich in proportion to the number of 
things which he can afford to let alone." In practice he may 
have had a touch of the Bohemian, but in principle he was a 
true Puritan. 

His Works and Literary Characteristics. — The works of 
Thoreau consist of his Journal, now published in fourteen 
volumes; a number of books compiled from the Journal, de- 
scriptive of New England nature; The Maine Woods (1864), 
Caye Cod (1865),. and A Yankee in Canada (1866), all records 
of tramps through the regions mentioned; A Week on the Con- 
cord and Merrimac Rivers (1849), and Walden (1854). Only 
the last two were pubhshed during Thoreau's life. The Journal 
is virtually an autobiography, covering the years from his 
graduation at Harvard to his death, and is a rich mine of in- 
formation about the author's tastes, purposes, and ideals. 
Independent of the Journal, his works are in eleven volumes — 
essays, descriptions, narrations of personal experiences. Of all 
these books A Week on the Concord and Merrimac and Walden 
are the most characteristic, and may be briefly considered; 
indeed, Thoreau hves in the pubHc mind chiefly through 
Walden. He is almost ''the man of one book." 

A Week on the Concord and Merrimac is an account of the 
journey which Thoreau and his brother ^lade on those rivers in 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 175 

their own rowboat. Nothing seems to have escaped the lynx 
eyes of the young naturahst and explorer. The bits of descrip- 
tion are full of pleasing color. Better still to the reader of to- 
day are the reflections on all sorts of matters suggested by the 
freedom and the naturalness of the week's outing. The book 
was completed some years after the experiences related, and the 
leisurely writing of it afforded an opportunity for seasoning 
description and narration with philosophy. Certain chapters 
are really essays; the author occasionally drops into verse — 
the crudeness of the verse warrants the use of the word "drops"; 
sometimes he turns literary critic and discourses on style. On 
the matter of style Thoreau has said many good things : 

A man's whole life is taxed for the least thing well done. It is its 
net result. Every sentence is the result of a long probation. . . . The 
word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is 
cousin to a deed which the speaker could have better done. 

The mind never makes a great and successful effort without a corres- 
ponding energy of the body. We are often struck by the force and pre- 
cision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, 
easily attain, when required to make the effort. As if plainness and 
vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the 
farm and in the workshop than in the schools. 

A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead 
of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end. The 
scholar requires hard and serious labor to give an impetus to his thought. 
He will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and 
effectively, as an axe or a sword. 

Comments like these make A Week sl stimulating book, while 
the nature parts of it, including the descriptions of New England 
village life, entertain those who have a Hking for local color. 
The work did not sell well, and of the thousand copies of the 
first edition (1849) more than seven hundred were turned over 
to the author by the booksellers. Thereupon Thoreau wrote 
in his diary: "I have now a Hbrary of nearly nine hundred 



176 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is 
it not well that the author should behold the fruit of his labor?'' 
Walden is the greatest of Thoreau's works. It is a record of 
his Hfe and thoughts in his cabin at Walden Pond; parts of the 
book are descriptive, parts are the meditations of a country 
philosopher; there is no essential unity. The chapters have 
such headings as ''Sounds," ''The Bean-Field," "Brute Neigh- 
bors," "Higher Laws," "Winter Animals," "Visitors," "The 
Pond in Winter," "Solitude." Bits of poetry are scattered 
through the volume, some original, some from the author's 
wide reading. Personal experiences are related with frank 
and engaging informality — the cost of living, the preparation of 
meals, the day's work, association T\dth birds and squirrels. 
In the chapter called "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" 
Thoreau says: 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front 
only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had 
to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. 
I. did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish 
to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. 

Walden is a refreshing book; the breezes blow through it; 
the pine needles lend their fragrance; the ripples of the little 
lake make their musical imdertone. It is also a wise book: 
one comes across paragraphs of high and heartening sentiment, 
which only a poet-philosopher could utter. Here is one, for 
instance, chosen almost at random: 

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he 
worships, after a style purely his own; nor can he get off by hammering 
marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material 
is our flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine 
a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. 

Literary Characteristics. — Thoreau preaches with earnest- 
ness the gospel of individualism. His style is clear, picturesque, 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 177 

at times musical, and frequently relieved by gentle humor. 
The sincerity of the man appears in his style: ''The one great 
rule of composition," said he, ''is to speak the truth.'^ He 
accordingly wrote of nature as he saw it, and his descriptions 
have the natural coloring somewhat heightened by his sense 
of poetic communion with field and wood and bird and 
flower. Though he wrote verse, he succeeded best in prose; 
the poetic form seemed to cramp his freedom of expression. 
Such sentences as the follo^vdng show that he was both poet 
and philosopher: 

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. 

Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to 
expectations. 

The tanager files through the green foliage as if it would ignite the 
leaves. 

Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. 

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, but so 
to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, 
independence, magnanimity, and trust. 

No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the beech. 

The axiomatic quality of Thoreau's prose .often suggests 
Emerson's, but the style of the two men is essentially different, 
as one may easily see by reading a few pages from an essay of 
each. During his lifetime and for many years afterwards 
Thoreau suffered from comparison with Emerson. It was 
thought that he was a pale reflection of the ''sage of Concord." 
Not so: we now reahze that Thoreau is thoroughly original. 
His fame has steadily increased, indeed, and there has been a 
growing demand for his works, including his voluminous Journal. 
He has come to occupy a high and really unique place in 
American literature. 



178 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) 

His Life. — Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, 
July 4, 1804, son of a sea captain and direct descendant of William Ha- 
thorne (the "w" was inserted in the name by Nathaniel), who came 
over with John Winthrop on the Arabella. This first American ancestor, 
strong Puritan that he was, persecuted the Quakers, and his son John 
was a judge in the famous witchcraft trials. Later on, the men of the 
family became sea captains, and their social importance in Salem was 
thereby lessened. 

The novelist's grandfather is the hero of the Revolutionary ballad 
called "Bold Hathorne." Nathaniel's father died when the boy was 
only four years old, and his rearing was left to his mother, a some- 
what eccentric woman who loved to be alone. For forty years, in 
fact, after her husband's death she took her meals alone in her room, 
and so the children found in her no intimate companionship, though 
she could hardly be called a morbid woman. This fondness for seclu- 
sion had its effect on her son, whose love of loneliness was a marked 
characteristic. When he was fourteen years old, the family moved 
to the neighborhood of Sebago Lake in Maine, where they lived for a 
year or more. Here the boy roamed the forests and reveled in the 
solitudes. He returned to Salem to prepare for college under the 
direction of an uncle, and in 1821 entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, 
Maine. 

Hawthorne was a fairly good student; in English composition he 
may be said to have distinguished himself. He was a robust, athletic, 
handsome lad, fond of fishing and hunting, and of wandering in the 
woods and along the streams. He seems to have been sociable enough 
with a few congenial companions and to have had a good time, taking 
his part in college escapades. Among his fellow students were Long- 
fellow, Horatio Bridge, and Franklin Pierce, with the last two of whom 
he kept up through life an intimate friendship. While in college, if we 
may judge from his dedication to the volume called Snow-Image and 
Other Tales, he was meditating a literary career, though he wrote noth- 
ing of special significance during those four academic years. In 1825 he 
graduated at Bowdoin and returned to Salem. 

The next twelve or thirteen years Hawthorne spent in retirement at 
Salem, leading the life of a recluse. He was learning his art, however; 
in 1828 he paid one hundred dollars for the publication of Fanshawe, 
an immature romance of college life. The book was not successful, 
and the author in chagrin burned the imsold copies. The following 
years were nevertheless employed to good advantage; Hawthorne 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



179 




NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 



180 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

was reflecting, studying Salem and its neighborhood, and serving a 
severe literary apprenticeship. He lived during the day in the seclusion 
of his room, dreaming, reading, writing; at night he issued forth for 
lonely walks by the sea or in the woodland paths or through the narrow 
little streets of witch-haunted Salem. He made few friends; indeed, he 
loiew few people, and doubtless those he did know regarded him as an 
eccentric and silent being, who lived in another world apart. 

A number of sketches and short stories by Hawthorne were published 
in the early 'thirties in several New England magazines, among which 
was The Token, a popular "annual" of the day edited by S. G. Good- 
rich, who as ''Peter Parley" wTote many books for young people. For 
this and other periodicals Hawthorne had become a more or less regular 
contributor; he had, however, so far published nothing over his own 
signature. In 1837 his friend Bridge, without the author's knowledge, 
induced a publisher to bring out a collection of Hawthorne's stories 
under the title, Twice-Told Tales. This enjoyed a fairly good sale and 
greatly increased his reputation. Meanwhile the Peabodys, a promi- 
nent Salem family, had begun to take an interest in the obscure author; 
Miss Sophia Peabody, a young lady of artistic tastes, had drawn illus- 
trations for his story, "The Gentle Boy." The outcome of this asso- 
ciation was an engagement between Hawthorne and Miss Peabody. 

Before he could support a wife, however, it was necessary for Haw- 
thorne to find a more profitable occupation than authorship. Through 
the efforts of friends he was appointed in 1839 to a position in the Boston 
custom-house, where he remained two years, weighing cargoes and 
keeping tally as the vessels were unloaded. These practical duties he 
seems to have performed with success, if without enthusiasm. With 
the change of administration at Washington he lost his place. His 
savings, amounting to about one thousand dollars, he invested in the 
Brook Farm enterprise, with a view to making a home there for Miss 
Peabody, whom he hoped to marry the next year. Hawthorne was 
not an ardent transcendentalist, but the idealistic aims of the Brook 
Farm enthusiasts appealed to him, and he went to work with a right 
good will. A year's residence in this community was enough: manual 
labor, of which he conscientiously did his daily share, could not long 
attract one who was destined for another vocation. His Note-Books 
give in detail his impressions of the activities of Brook Farm. He had 
lost all his money, but he had gained valuable experience; and without 
further delay, he married and went to Concord to live in the Old Manse. 

From 1842 to 1846 Hawthorne and his wife lived happily in the old 
house near the famous bridge where the Concord farmers "fired the 
shot heard round the world," In the congenial atmosphere of this 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



181 



intellectual center he met such men as Emerson, Thoreau, and Chan- 
ning, and he roamed the woods and explored the streams in almost 
idyllic content. Out of this leisure grew Mosses from an Old Manse 
and other tales, but the monetary returns were slight. In 1846 the 
Democratic administration, through the influence of his friend Pierce, 
gave him the office of surveyor of customs at Salem. The three years 
from 1846 to 1849 he spent in his native town in this position, the duties 
of which he faithfully performed, in spite of the opposition of local poli- 
ticians, who were displeased at the appointment of a non-resident. 



A' 




HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHPLACE 

Salem, Mas3. 



Hawthorne did not mingle freely with his fellow-townsmen, and that 
also made against his popularity. The political whirligig brought its 
revenges, and in 1849 he was displaced. When in some depression of 
spirit he told his "^^dfe of his change of fortune, she cheerfully replied: 
"Oh, then you can write your book." This proved to be The Scarlet 
Letter, which appeared the next year. The following two years were 
spent at Lenox, Massachusetts, and at West Newton, near Boston, in 
the composition of The House of the Seven Gables and The BHthedale Ro- 
mance, 



182 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In 1852 Hawthorne returned to Concord, where he had purchased the 
little house on the road beyond Emerson's, since known as The Wayside, 
once the home of Bronson Alcott, a leading transcendentalist. The 
house is now visited by literary pilgrims, and the little bower back of 
it on the hillside among the pine trees is still pointed out as Hawthorne's 
out-of-door study. This was his American home for the rest of his life. 
His college mate, Franklin Pierce, came to the presidency in 1853, and 
the same year the author was made consul to Liverpool. This gave 
him an opportunity for travel and study, though he did not neglect 
the duties of his office; he seems, however, to have cared little for foreign 
social life, and, quite unlike Irving, he met few literary men. After 
four years' service, he resigned the Liverpool consulship and spent the 
next three years traveling on the continent; much of this time was passed 
in Rome, where he gathered material for The Marble Faun finishing 
it in England in 1859. 

Hawthorne returned to America in 1860, having lived abroad seven 
years. He had abundance of material for many romances, as his volumi- 
nous Note-Books show, and he purposed to settle down at Concord for 
years of authorsiiip. These plans were not to be realized. The war 
between the North and the South was on; Hawthorne, a man of peace 
and in love with the quiet life, was depressed at the disturbed condition 
of the country; the effect was bad on so sensitive a soul. After travel- 
ing about in search of health, he died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 
in May, 1864, in the company of his faithful friend, ex-President Pierce, 
with whom he was making a journey to the White Mountains. His 
grave is in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord. 

His Personality. — Physically Hawthorne was an uncommonly 
handsome man; this picture of him in his earlier manhood by 
his son JuHan, though perhaps shghtly idealized, is in the main 
doubtless correct: ''He was five feet, ten and a half inches in 
height, broad-shouldered, but of a light, athletic build, not 
weighing more than one hundred and fifty pounds. His limbs 
were beautifully formed, and the moulding of his neck and 
throat was as fine as anything in antique sculpture. His hair, 
which had a long, curving wave in it, approached blackness in 
color; his head was large and grandly developed; his eyebrows 
were dark and heavy, with a superb arch and space beneath. 
His nose was straight but the contour of his chin was Roman. 
, , . . His ey^s were large, dark blue, brilliant, and full 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 183 

of varied expression. Bayard Taylor used to say that they 
were the only eyes he had ever known flash fire. . . . 
His complexion was delicate and transparent, rather dark 
than Hght, with a ruddy tinge in the cheeks. . . . Up to 
the time he was forty years old, he could clear a height of five 
feet at a standing jump. His voice, which was low and deep, 
in ordinary conversation, had astounding volume when he 
chose to give full vent to it." 

Hawthorne had a somewhat shy and retiring nature, given 
much to dreaming and meditation. All his life he was more or 
less solitary, though with congenial companions he was sociable 
enough; at college, as we have seen, he made friends and was a 
leader in good fellov/ship; his family fife was beautiful. From 
the great movements of his time he lived apart, busied with 
problems of conscience rooted in romance. He was brooding 
and introspective. New people he did not care to meet, nor 
was he anything of a partisan. Though he lived in one of the 
most critical periods of American history, he apparently had 
little personal interest in the mighty struggle which was con- 
vulsing the nation. His enthusiasms were intellectual rather 
than social; if there be some ground for charging him with 
selfishness, it is lost sight of in the remembrance of his steadfast 
devotion to his friends, his conscientious performance of un- 
pleasant bread-winning tasks, and his singular consecration to 
his art. 

His Works. — The writings of Hawthorne may be divided into 
two general groups — (1) the Tales and Sketches, and (2) the 
Long Romances. The first group includes Twice-Told Tales 
(1837), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), The Snow Image and 
Other Tmlce-Told Tales (1851), A Wonder-Book (1851), Tan- 
glewood Tales (1853). The last two collections are children's 
stories, to which should be added the earlier Grandfather's Chair 
(1841), a volume of simple narratives from New England his- 
tory. The second group consists of the four long romances, 



184 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



The Scarlet Letter (1851), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), 
The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). 

The Tales. The volumes of tales represent the work of the 
first fort3'-fiYe j^ears of Hawthorne's life. Some of them ap- 
peared in periodicals before 1837, when the first series of 
Twice-Told Tales was published. In this volume, as finally 
completed, are to be found such pieces as *The Gray 
Champion," ^The IMinister's Black VeiV '''The May-Pole of 
Merry Mount,'' '^A Rill from the Town Pump," /'Wakefield," 




^W^W^ 



THE OLD MANSE 
Home of Hawthorne ( 1842-'46) 



''Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "The Ambitious Guest," and 
'The White Old Maid." The name of the collection was 
probably suggested by the fact that many of the stories were 
already familiar traditions; it may be, too, that the author 
recalled the line from King John — "Life is as tedious as a 
twice-told tale." The second volume of tales and sketches. 
Mosses from an Old Manse, contains the well-known "Rap- 
paccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark." The first piece in 
the book is a dehghtful sketch called "The Old Manse." The 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERvS 185 

author's Concord home by that name furnished the title to the 
volume, and most of the stories were written there. The 
third volume of the series, The Snow Image and Other Twice- 
Told Tales, includes 'The Great Stone Face" and ''Ethan 
Brand." 

The pieces that make up these volumes fall naturally into 
three fairly well-defined groups: (1) Reflective essays or sketches 
on familiar scenes of daily hfe, reminding one of Addison's 
papers in The Spectator; (2) Stories based on dramatic incidents 
in New England history or tradition, each of which, as seen 
through the mist of years, formed some sort of crisis; and (3) 
Stories or sketches of an allegorical nature, dehcately setting 
forth some peculiar situation or experience. The last are, 
in the popular mind, most characteristic of Hawthorne's genius. 

To the first group belong such sketches as *'A Rill from the 
Town Pump," "Sights from a Steeple," "Sunday at Home," 
and "The Old Manse." These pieces resemble the informal, 
chatty essay, which Addison, Steele, and Goldsmith -wrote in 
eighteenth century English hterature and of which Irving was a 
master. Indeed, Hawthorne's sketches are very like Irving's 
in their limited range, humor, and reflective quahty. They 
have little or no plot; the writer leisurely plays with the subject; 
the result is a bit of impressionism, an illuminated picture of 
famihar scenes ; it may be a slight character-sketch. Sometimes 
we are entertained by viewing for a little while an etching of 
New England village life. Poe, in his admirable essay on 
Hawthorne's Tales, remarks that Addison, Irving, and Haw- 
thorne "have in common that tranquil and subdued manner 
which I have chosen to denominate repose.^' That statement 
happily characterizes Hawthorne's essay-sketches. 

The second group includes such historical tales and pastels as 
"The May-Pole of Merry Mount," "The Gray Champion," and 
"Endicott and the Red Cross." Seizing upon some dramatic 
incident of colonial legend, Hawthorne invests it with lasting 
interest. At a critical moment, when the old order is about 



186 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



to give piace to the new, or when some immemorial custom is 
about to vanish, he chooses his scene. Hence we have a vivid 
study in contrast. There is a tableau rising action, a chmax. 
The effect is strikingly dramatic; the sudden transition from the 
static to the djmamic appeals to the imagination and fixes the 
event in the memory. Take, for instance, the appearance of 

the stern Puritan Endicott in 
the midst of the May -pole fes- 
tivities at Merry Mount; or the 
mysterious figure -of the Gray 
Champion suddenly stalking 
before the host of the Puri- 
tans' oppressors to announce the 
downfall of James II and the 
coming of a Protestant king to 
the throne; or the bold act of 
John Endicott, tearing the red 
cross from the New England 
banner in the presence of the 
soldiers^ and of the multitude. 
The characters who perform 
these exploits loom larger than 
in nature; in Hawthorne's hands 
they come to have almost an 
allegorical significance. Thus, 
the Gray Champion seems to 
be the hereditary spirit of Puri- 
tan traditions appearing at a 
OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTMN critical moment, and Endicott 

Original of the "Great Stone Face," White ^^g incamatiou of militant Puri- 
Mountains, N. H. . 

tanism. 

It is in the third class of stories, however, that Hawthorne 

is at his best — stories in which there is a faint allegory ending 

in an impUed or stated moral lesson. Prominent among these 

are "The Great Stone Face," ''The Birthmark," ''Rappaccini's 




.;%f^^; 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 187 

Daughter," and ''Ethan Brand." The first, probably the most 
famihar of the Tales, artistically sets forth the truth that real 
success should not be measured by material standards; the 
second impresses the lesson that to be perfect and at the same 
time human is impossible; the third shows the baneful results 
of scientific curiosity in the case of an Itahan physician, who 
has brought up his daughter in a garden of poisonous flowers, 
until her own system is so saturated with their exhalations that 
whatever she breathes on dies. All things considered, perhaps 
the most powerful of them all is ''Ethan Brand," the story of 
the lime-burner, who went on a search for the unpardonable 
sin, only to find it at last in his own hard, unsympathetic heart, 
which had lost the sense of human brotherhood: "Thus Ethan 
Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment 
that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improve- 
ment with his intellect." 

This group of stories alone would entitle Hawthorne to be 
called one of the few supreme masters of the short-story form 
in the world. They differ from those of Poe, the father of the 
modern short story, in their appeal to the conscience as well as 
in their somewhat looser structure; Poe's stories, as will be 
shown in the next chapter, are severely intellectual and rigidly 
unified. Hawthorne's stories differ from Irving's in ethical 
quahty and in greater compactness of form and climactic effect. 
A discussion of the short story as a form must be deferred 
until Poe is considered; suffice it to say here that contempo- 
raneously with Poe, the great New England artist was producing 
stories on the mighty moral themes of fate and sin, tinged with 
allegory and spirituaUzed with symbol, which display the 
perfect flowering of the Puritan conscience. 

Hawthorne's children's stories are among the most dehghtful 
in our hterature. He loved children and he knew how to adapt 
himself to their understanding. Accordingly, we find in his 
Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales sl charming recital of 
classic myths for the youthful mind. These stories are of 



188 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

course minor efforts as compared with those just considered, 
but they serve to show how Hawthorne adorned whatever he 
touched. 

The Long Romances. The Scarlet Letter, the first of the long 
romances, appeared in 1850. Five thousand copies were 
printed as the first edition; to the surprise of the pubhsher 
and the greater surprise of the author, who had a little while 
before called himself ''the most unpopular writer in America, '^ 
a second edition was necessary in less than two weeks. The 
book was written in Salem under rather depressing circum- 
stances, following Hawthorne's loss of his position at the old 
custom-house and the death of his mother. It was published 
in Boston by his friend, James T. Fields. At last, at the age of 
forty-six, the author's fame was firmly established. 

The scene of The Scarlet Letter is laid in Boston in the early 
Puritan period. The germ of the story may be found in one of 
the Twice-Told Tales, ^'Endicott and the Red Cross,'' in which 
reference is made to a young woman 'Vhose doom it was to 
wear the letter A on the breast of her gown, in the eyes of all 
the world and her own children." In The Scarlet Letter there 
are four principal characters, Hester Prynne, the Reverend 
Arthur Dimmesdale, Little Pearl, and old Roger Chilling worth. 
Hester Prynne, the sinning and repentant woman, expiates in 
charitable service and suffering her sin with Dimmesdale, who 
after years of silent agony makes confession before the multitude 
and dies; little Pearl is the elfish child of Hester and Dimmes- 
dale, and flits through the story like a darksome fairy; old 
Roger Chilhngworth, the physician, is an avenging fury to the 
guilty pair, but is entangled at last in his o^j. revengeful 
malice. 

The romance is a study of the effect of one great sin upon 
these four persons and upon the community. Such a psycho- 
logical problem, with its dark background of Puritan tradition, 
was quite in harmony with Hawthorne's genius, and he worked 
it out with compelling power. The theme is a somber one, 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 189 

but it is relieved by stretches of musical language, thrilling 
passages of soul-analysis, and by the elfin presence of little 
Pearl. Interest centers in the characters, who move onward to 
their doom like the fated personages of a Greek drama, expiating 
their transgressions under inexorable law. The plot is slight, 
and yet so firmly does The Scarlet Letter grip the mind, that 
Dne may read it many times without passing from under the 
spell of the literary artist who wove the magic web. 

Closely following The Scarlet Letter came The House of the 
Seven Gables, written at Lenox amid cheerful surroundings. It 
had an immediate popularity, which has continued even to 
these days. The scene is in Salem, famihar to Hawthorne from 
childhood; it would be futile, however, to insist that the house 
now pointed out is the veritable seven-gabled mansion of the 
story. Doubtless the author had in mind a composite picture 
with gables from several houses. The modern setting of The 
House of the Seven Gables makes it more realistic and human than 
the first novel, though the main interest is, of course, in an old 
wrong working its revenge on a later generation. And so the 
flavor of the book is distinctly antique. The theme is the 
effect of hereditary guilt on innocent posterity. At last, 
however, the ancient curse against the Pyncheons falls in 
dramatic manner on old Judge Pyncheon; the expiation is 
complete, and the innocent sufferers come into their rightful 
inheritance. The autumn-hke atmosphere of The House of 
the Seven Gables is warmed and brightened by the winning 
personahty of Phoebe Pyncheon, whose cheery smile brings 
customers to Miss Hepzibah's cent shop. The scenes in and 
around this little shop are among the most delightful touches 
of local color in American fiction. 

The Blithedale Rornance, the third of Hawthorne's longer 
stories, is based in part at least on his experiences and observa- 
tions as a member of the Brook Farm Community, the socialist 
settlement already described. From his Note-Books, in which 
he jotted down his impressions while a resident, he took the 



190 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

material for some of the incidents; ^^Blithedale'' is a sort of 
poetic name for Brook Farm. The characters are, he asserts, 
entirely fictitious, though earlier readers identified the prominent 
ones with certain well-known persons; it was thought, in 
particular, that Zenobia was intended for Margaret Fuller, but 
Hawthorne denied this. The book expresses his opinion on 
social reform movements, of which the ideahstic community 
at West Roxbury was a conspicuous example. The hero is a 
professional reformer, whose zeal for one kind of philanthropy 
has made him narrow and selfish. In a sense The Blithedale 
Romance is a satire, and it is therefore not in Hawthorne's best 
vein. There is no question of sin and retribution, no great 
moral problem, as in his other novels. The one powerful 
figure is Zenobia, splendid creature of stormy, passionate im- 
pulse, who ranks along with Hester of The Scarlet Letter and 
Miriam of The Marble Faun. 

The Marble Faun, last of the great romances, was begun in 
Italy and finished in England. The scene is in Rome; the 
characters, mostly Americans transferred to Italian soil, are 
Miriam and her faun lover, Donatello, Hilda and her sculptor 
lover, Kenyon. The story centers about Donatello and his 
love, the other pair of lovers being purely subsidiary. Dona- 
tello, morally undeveloped, commits a murder; then comes his 
awakening; through the knowledge of sin his faunlike nature 
becomes human, the animal changes into a man. Through 
crime and suffering a conscience is gradually evolved; the loss 
of innocence brings a sense of moral responsibihty. That is the 
central theme of the book. Donatello is the creature of 
primeval innocence, the Marble Faun of Praxiteles (the famous 
statue in the Capitoline Museum in Rome) endued with life. 
Miriam is the beautiful, red-blooded, almost voluptuous, 
woman, who suffers with her lover, Donatello; over her life 
some mysterious crime committed long ago, has thrown its 
shadow. Hilda, gentle maiden keeping vigil in her tower 
among the doves, is the embodiment of white-souled innocence. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 191 

The Marble Faun lacks unity of plot; stretches of description 
and moralizing break the continuity; the characters seem some- 
what shadowy and unconvincing; the work is a romantic 
allegory. Matter-of-fact readers, feeling that the ending was 
unsatisfactory, demanded a final explanatory chapter; this 
certainly added nothing to the story, but rather spoiled the 
artistic effect. In England the book was pubhshed under the 
title, * 'Transformation," which indicates the symboHcal nature 
of the story. Its value as a guidebook to Rome has long been 
recognized, and English and American visitors to the eternal 
city still take along with them this sympathetic and poetic 
interpreter of historic scenes and treasures. 

Characteristics and Contribution. — In his choice of subjects 
Hawthorne showed a decided preference for moral problems. 
The theme of The Scarlet Letter, as we have seen, is the effect 
of sin on the individual soul; of The House of the Seven Gables, 
the suffering entailed on posterity by an ancient wrong; of 
The Marble Faun, the transformation of the animal to the 
man through crime. The workings of the conscience, sin and 
retribution, human struggle with personal or inherited ill- 
doing, were matters of vital interest to Hawthorne; for the 
theological aspects of these questions, as the old Puritans 
discussed them, he care5 not. He shows, however, the Puritan 
attitude in his fondness for dealing with the individual, which 
is, at bottom, also characteristic of the transcendentalists. 
Hawthorne was a strong individuahst; he concerned himself 
little with the social group. He wrote best when he was treat- 
ing of the past; a rich background of tradition was almost a 
necessity with him. 

His method of handling his subjects was through allegory 
and symbol. Herein he resembles Spenser and Bunyan. An 
early favorite of his, as with so many men of poetic natures, was 
Spenser's Faerie Queene, the influence of which upon his thought 
and style was very great; his hking for Spenser^s poem is 
evidenced by the fact that he named his first child "Una,'' 



192 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

from one of the heroines in that allegory. He was also fond of 
Pilgrim^ s Progress. Moreover, it is pleasant to remember that 
Hawthorne's first American ancestor, who came over with 
John Winthrop, is said to have brought with him a copy of Sir 
Philip Sidney's Arcadia, a romantic book not usually associated 
with the Puritan temper. It is no wonder, then, that Haw- 
thorne expressed himself in allegory and symbol. Throughout 
his writings he makes use of physical images as concrete symbols 
of moral truth. Each of the three great romances. The Scarlet 
Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun, is 
named after a specific physical figure. In Twice-Told Tales, 
according to Professor C. Alphonso Smith, '^the word symbol 
occurs twenty-five times, the word emblem twenty times. 
Among his favorite symbols may be mentioned a shroud, a 
black veil, a carbuncle, a snake, a mantle, a butterfly, a cross, 
and a scarlet letter."^ Others will occur to the thoughtful 
reader. Recall, for instance, the rose before Hester's prison- 
door and the brilliant flower in Zenobia's dark hair. Haw- 
thorne is our greatest symbolist. 

Hawthorne's style has purity, elevation, and at times an 
exquisite musical cadence. It is well modulated and exceedingly 
pleasing to the ear, and it is always artistically sustained. 
Some of the short stories might be called prose poems, and 
there are passages in the long romances, particularly in The 
Scarlet Letter, which one is tempted to read again and again 
through sheer dehght in the verbal harmony. Take, for 
instance, this bit of description from "Ethan Brand," picturing 
the early morning in the mountains: 

Old Greylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scat- 
tered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains there were 
heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into 
the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the 
same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper 
atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested 

^C. Alphonso Smith: ''The American Short Story," p. 21, 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 193 

on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in the 
air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might ascend into the heavenly- 
regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to 
look at it. 

Hawthorne's chief contribution to our literature has been the 
romance of Puritanism. He was far enough from the sinister 
gloom of those forbidding times to find romantic material 
hidden away under the outward crust of intolerance that 
hardened the old New England conscience. By the magic 
alchemy of his imagination this material suffered, as it were, 
^% sea-change into something rich and strange.'' The super- 
natural, the mysterious, fascinated him whenever he found 
therein some moral value, Puritan as he still was, born out of 
time. In that mystic past he was rooted; in the present and 
its reforms he showed a curious lack of interest; his attitude, 
indeed, toward the life and thought of his day was one of 
detachment. His greatest achievement is The Scarlet Letter^ 
so far the finest product in the history of American fiction; 
and he enjoys the rare distinction of having succeeded equally 
well with long romances and short stories. 

Hawthorne's numerous Note-Books, kept with great faithful- 
ness all his life, contain the germs of almost endless stories. 
He had a way of writing down hints for stories, embryo plots, 
for possible development. His creative ingenuity seems never 
to have flagged. The brooding habit of his mind and the long 
years of sohtude made this material grow into many volumes. 
He left several unfinished romances, and when death came, the 
flower of his imagination had not withered. 

THE CAMBRIDGE GROUP 

Boston was of course the center of New England culture; 
Cambridge was an immediate suburb of Boston, and Concord 
a distant suburb. For the sake of clearness in classification, 
however, it has seemed best to group the Concord writers to 



194 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



themselves, though it must be understood that intellectually 
they belong to the Boston area. Cambridge in those days was 
a town of large, shady yards, roomy mansions, gardens, and 
broad streets — little more, indeed, than an overgrown village, 
where a close neighborliness prevailed among the ancestral 
homes. 

Dominating the intellectual life of the region and a fostering 
mother of genius, was Harvard College, whose history is 
contemporary with that of New England. In the years when 
her sons were winning their laurels in letters. Harvard was not 
the great university of to-day; probably the ' 'humanities" 
meant more to the individual then, because the academic 




JOHNSTON GATE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



community was smaller and the association among its members 
was closer. And then, too, men who were teaching literature 
were also creators of literature; in Longfellow and Lowell the 
boys found living poets as interpreters of dead poets; and 
Holmes over in the medical school was seasoning anatomy with 
wit and humor. 

Just, across the Charles in Boston the Atlantic Monthly had 
been started in 1857, and its first contributors were, these 
Cambridge men. Its ideals were purely literary, and to these 
early traditions it has happily continued faithful. It would be 
difficult, indeed, to estimate the influence of this periodical in 
American literature; in its columns much that we now call 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 195 




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW » 

"standard literature" first appeared, and its high tone has done 
much to give character and distinction to our Hterary life. 

The Cambridge group proper consists of Longfellow, Lowell, 
and Holmes; to these should be added several of the historians 
and orators, whose fame, while not so great as that of the poets 
and essayists, is just as enduring. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882) 

His Life. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, 
February 27, 1807, the son of a prominent lawyer there. On his mother's 
side he was descended from John and Priscilla Alden of the Plymouth 
colony; on his father's, his ancestry were also cultivated people. His 
father and grandfather were graduates of Harvard. In his boyhood 
at Portland Longfellow showed those characteristics for which he was 
noted in later years — gentleness, studiousness, and fondness for reading. 
The rougher sports of youth he did not like, and he was accordingly 

> Used by pennission of Houghton Miflain Co. 



196 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

sent to private schools. When he was thirteen his poem, the "Battle 
of Lovell's Pond," the crude forerunner of his fine narrative verse, was 
printed in the Portland Gazette. In these early years his favorite work 
was Irving' s Sketch-Book, then appearing in parts; his boyhood poets 
seem to have been Moore, Cowper, and Ossian. At Bowdoin College, 
Brunswick, Maine, whither he went in 1822 to enter the sophomore 
class, he made an excellent record. Here he had as fellow-students 
Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel Hawthorne; the latter was a classmate. 

After Longfellow's graduation in 1825, his father wished him to study 
law, but the son had already begun to look towards literature as a pro- 
fession. "I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature," 
he wrote to his father during his last year in college; "my whole soul 
burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centers in it." 
Fortunately about this time the trustees of Bowdoin offered to establish 
a professorship of modern languages for the yoimg scholar, provided 
he would spend several years abroad preparing for his duties. This 
offer was accepted, and in 1826, after reading law more or less indiffer- 
ently for a while, he sailed for Europe. For the next three years he was 
a diligent student of French, Italian, and Spanish, and by the end of 
his stay he had acquired a good practical knowledge of these languages. 

From 1829 to 1834 Longfellow was a professor at Bowdoin College. 
He performed his duties with conscientious devotion, and he published 
textbooks on the Romance languages, the serious study of which was 
just beginning in America. His reputation as a teacher and scholar 
soon reached Cambridge, with the result that in 1834 he was offered 
the Smith Professorship of Romance languages at Harvard, the sugges- 
tion being added that he should spend a year or more abroad perfecting 
himself in German. This offer he eagerly accepted, and with his wife, 
who was Mary Potter of Portland, he went to Europe for further study. 
Mrs. Longfellow died in Holland, and the following months were dark- 
ened by this great sorrow. Longfellow studied and read faithfully, 
however, and succeeded in mastering the German language. His stay 
in Germany broadened and deepened his culture; the effects of it, indeed, 
may be seen in his prose romance, Hyperion, as well as in numerous 
shorter poems. 

Longfellow taught at Harvard from 1836 to 1854. He was a good, 
faithful instructor, but gradually the labors of the classroom wore 
upon him, and he finally resigned "his professorship in order to give all 
his time to poetry. In 1843 he married Miss Frances Appleton, whom 
he had met some years before while in Germany, and he received as a 
gift from her father the historic old Craigie House on Brattle Street, 
once Washington's headquarters. Here the poet gathered about him 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 197 

a host of friends and here his best work was done. He was singularly 
happy in his domestic life; loved by all the literary men of Boston and 
Cambridge, he spent his days in congenial surroundings. Through 
his marriage and the income from his poems he was financially inde- 
pendent, and in the devotion of his family and neighbors he was a happy 
man. He made other trips abroad, and was welcomed everywhere as 
the most popular of American poets. 

The tragedy of Longfellow's life happened in 1861, when one day in 
the library Mrs. Longfellow's dress caught fire and she was fatally 
burned. The poet, who was himself severely injured in attempting to 
save her, was for many months a prey to his great grief, and the shadow 
of this sorrow was never wholly lifted from his life. To alleviate it, 
he turned with energy to the translation of Dante's Divine Comedy^ 
at which he steadily worked for years. The later life of the poet was 
peaceful in the love of his children and friends and in the honors which 
came to him in his own country and in foreign lands. In 1868-'69, while 
he was in England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge conferred 
honorary degrees upon him. By general consent, he was the laureate 
of the popular heart. The end came at Craigie House on March 24, 1882, 
and he was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. Less than 
a month before, the public school children all over the United States 
had celebrated the seventy-fifth birthday of the gentle poet. 

His Personality. — Gentleness and purity of character, 
loveliness of life, refinement of culture, are the qualities most 
conspicuous in Longfellow. His writings and his life happily 
agree. He was a man of strong domestic virtues, and he won the 
affection of a large circle of men and women and children. 
Children loved him because he loved them. He was happiest 
at home with his own children. His presence in Cambridge 
was a benediction. His heart was big and gentle, and that 
made him a lovable gentleman, full of sweetness and hght. 
Courage and strength he had, but it was the quiet, inward kind. 

For the several reforms of his time and locaHty Long-fellow 
had no very deep concern: the transcendental movement, for 
instance, which stirred Emerson and other literary men, seems 
to have made little or no impression on him; in the anti-slavery 
agitation he was only mildly interested. It is true that he 
wrote seven poems on slavery as he was returning from Europe 



198 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in 1842, but he did not include them in the first edition of his 
works. He was of course opposed to slavery, but he was no 
partisan; on that subject, as indeed on all others, his attitude 
was one of calm conviction without aggressiveness. The moral 
vein in him was deep enough, but it was not militant. 

His Works. — THe writings of Longfellow consist of the prose 
works, Outre-Mer, Hyperion, and Kdvanagh; translations from 
European poets, particularly the version of Dante's Divine 
Comedy; and the great body of original poetry, the fame of 
which has kept from perishing all else he did, with the probable 
exception of the Dante translation. 

The prose work may be passed over with only a brief mention. 
The earhest book, Outre-Mer (''Beyond the Sea"), is a series of 
sketches of scenes and impressions during his first stay in 
Europe, originally contributed to magazines. It is in the 
manner of the Sketch-Book, and is of no great value except as a 
sort of sentimental first-fruits of a promising youth. The next 
work, Hyperion (1839), is a prose romance growing out of his 
second trip abroad. It is the story of the unsuccessful wooing 
of a heroine named Mary Ashburton by a youth named Paul 
Flemming. The scene is laid in Germany and Switzerland, 
and the plot and setting reflect much of Longfellow's own 
experience. The book is in parts a thinly veiled autobiography, 
and is all the more interesting in view of the author's marriage 
later to Miss Appleton, of whom the heroine is a portrait. The 
story abounds in youthful sentiment expressed in poetic prose. 
The last prose work of Longfellow, Kavanagh (1849), is a 
romance of life in a Massachusetts village, where Longfellow 
had spent a summer. The hero, Kavanagh, is a learned and 
attractive young clergyman, to whom two fair members of his 
congregation are equally devoted. He mairies one of them, 
and the other in consequence slowly pines away. The story is 
an idealized transcript of village life, but not vital. 

Longfellow's translations include many lyrics and ballads 
from the Spanish, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and German. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 199 

Perhaps the most famihar of these is the Httle poem called 
"Beware," from the German, the first two stanzas of which are: 

I know a maiden fair to see, 

Take care! 
She can both false and friendly be, 

Beware! Beware! 

Trust her not! 
She is fooling thee! 

She has two eyes, so soft and brown, 

Take care! 
She gives a side-glance and looks down, 

Beware! Beware! 

Trust her not! 
She is fooling thee! 

Of higher quality is his version of Uhland's ''The Castle by the 
Sea," in which is reproduced much of the magic, haunting tone 
of the original. The translation of Dante (1867), was, as 
already mentioned, a labor of consolation following the death 
of the poet's wife, as Bryant's rendering of Homer had been. 
Longfellow's Dante is the most faithful verse translation of 
that classic in the Enghsh language, but its very Hteralness 
hampers the free expression of the spirit of the original. Still, 
the work is a monument to American scholarship as well as to 
the loving patience and poetic sympathy of Longfellow. 

Apart from the prose and the translations stands the large 
body of Longfellow's original verse, by which he will continue 
to be judged. It is difficult to make any exact general classi- 
fication of this. For the sake of convenience, however, we 
may roughly divide his poetry into (1) Shorter Lyric and 
r>^arrative Poems, (2) Ballads Proper, (3) Longer Narrative 
Poems, and (4) Dramatic Compositions. Among the shorter 
lyric and narrative poems are those included in his earhest 
collection. Voices of the Night (1839), such as ''A Psalm of 
Life," '^Hymn to the Night," and ''Footsteps of Angels"; 
such famihar poems as 'The Village Blacksmith," "The Rainy 



200 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Day/^ ''Excelsior/' 'The Day is Done," ''Maidenhood," 
"The Bridge," "The Arsenal at Springfield,'' "Resignation," 
"The Building of the Ship," "The Children's Hour," and "The 
Old Clock on the Stairs"; and the six Sonnets prefixed to the 
translation of Dante. To the Ballads belong "The Skeleton 
in Armour," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," and the spirited 
"Paul Revere's Ride" and "King Robert of Sicily" (both found 
in Tales of a Wayside Inn), The longer narrative poems are 
Evangeline, Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and 




CRAIGIE HOUSE 

Home of Longfellow, Cambridge, Mass. 



the collection of stories called Tales of a Wayside Inn. The 
principal dramatic compositions are The Spanish Student, 
Christus, and The Masque of Pandora. This is, of course, 
an imperfect enumeration; readers of Longfellow will easily 
recall other important poems not mentioned in so brief an 
account. The three most famous longer poems demand 
separate consideration. 

Evangeline. Evangeline, Longfellow's first long narrative 
poem, was pubhshed in 1847. Its success was immediate and 
pronounced, and this popularity has continued. The incident 
on which the poem is based, namely, the separation of a maiden 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 201 

from her lover and her long search for him only to find him dying 
in a hospital, is said to have been related to Longfellow by 
Hawthorne one day at dinner at Craigie House. The pathos 
of the story, the romantic atmosphere of Acadia with its 
pastoral life, the wanderings of the suffering exiles, all appealed 
to the sensitive and pensive poet. He had never been in Nova 
Scotia — ^the happy land from which the French were expelled 
by the British in 1755 — nor had he ever seen the Mississippi, 
along which his heroine journeys looking for her lover; but he 
read a history or two on the dispersion of the Acadians, saw a 
diorama of the valley of the Mississippi, and heard from 
travelers accounts of the region. He let his imagination play 
upon the scenes, and wrote a charming idyl of ^'the forest 
primeval'' and ''the beauty and strength of woman's devotion." 

Evangeline is written in Kiting hexameters, an unusual meter 
in English, but in the hands of Longfellow it became a fitting 
form of expression for the touching experiences of the lovers 
torn apart on their marriage-day. The poem is full of sad, 
haunting music, in a minor key, which a sympathetic reading 
aloud brings out as exquisite harmony. The dreamy, golden 
haze, which hovers about the landscape in the beginning, 
vanishes in the confusion that attends the departure of the 
Acadians and the burning of the village ; then the gloom deepens 
through the weary years, hghted up at last for a fleeting moment 
by the final meeting and the faint recognition. 

Hiawatha. In 1855 appeared Hiawatha, so far the most 
successful attempt to immortahze Indian fife and legends in 
poetry. Much had hitherto been written about the Indian, 
some of it highly idealized, some of it objectionably realistic; 
but Longfellow famiharized himself with the traditions of the 
race and in popular meter made them the common possession 
of readers. His material he got largely from Schoolcraft's 
book on the Indians of the Northwest, their m>"ths and other 
oral legends. The poet had not visited the places he described, 
nor did he have any intimate knowledge of Indian character, 



202 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

but, as in his other poems on legendary subjects, his fancy 
built up out of other men's facts a fascinating story essentially 
true in its larger aspects. The choice of the rhymeless, four- 
beat measure (trochaic tetrameter) was a happy one; indeed, 
it may be safely said that the popularity of Hiawatha is due as 
much to the meter as to the matter. It easily lends itself to 
memorizing and, what readers were quick to observe, to parody. 
Few American poems have been more widely parodied; that, 
however, is a species of the flattery of imitation. The meter 
was avowedly borrowed from the Finnish epic, Kalevala. 

All young readers love Hiawatha, and many older ones, too. 
The childhood, youthful experiences, hunting and fishing, 
adventures, wooing and wedding, of Hiawatha; the famine, 
the death of the lovely Minnehaha, the coming of the white 
man, and the departure of Hiawatha ^'westward, westward," 
■ — all have their charm, and all reveal the deep primal poetry 
of Indian folklore. Who has not been touched with a kind of 
awe, tinged with pensive sadness, at the final lines that tell of 
Hiawatha sailing into the fiery sunset, like some American 
King Arthur passing to his enchanted ''island-valley of Avilion," 
the Indian's ''happy hunting-ground"? 

And the .evening sun descending 
Set the clouds on fire with redness, 
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie, 
Left upon the level water 
One long trail and track of splendor, 
Down whose stream, as down a river, 
Westward, westward, Hiawatha 
Sailed into the fiery sunset, 
Sailed into the purple vapors, 
Sailed into the dusk of evening. 

And the people from the margin 
Watched him floating, rising, sinking, 
Till the birch canoe seemed lifted 
High into that sea of splendor, 
Till it sank into the vapors 
Like the new moon slowly, slowly 
Sinking in the purple distance. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 203 

Thus the poem Hiawatha has an epic significance; it resembles 
an allegory in which the main incidents and characters are more 
or less symboHcal of the history of the race. Hiawatha himself 
is the racial prophet and hero, looming larger than life and 
embodjdng all the virtues of his people : with the coming of the 
''pale face" his work is done, and so he vanishes. The glory 
of the ''red man'' has departed. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. The last of the three long 
narrative poems, The Courtship of Miles Standish, was pub- 
lished in 1858. It is in many respects the most deHghtful of 
the three; certainly it is the most human. Longfellow, like 
Bryant, traced his descent from John and Priscilla Alden, and 
the subject was, therefore, of personal interest to him. Priscilla's 
famous reply to John about speaking for himself had long been 
a tradition in the Longfellow family. The poem abounds in 
good touches: the blunt and business-like soldier. Miles Stan- 
dish, who insists that "if you wish a thing to be well done, 
you must do it yourself," and yet sends John Alden to woo 
Priscilla for him; the archness of the maiden, who helps Alden 
to say out the promptings of his heart; the homely pictures of 
Puritan domestic hfe; the happy ending, and the dramatic 
reappearance of Standish. There is far more humor in The 
Courtship of Miles Standish than is commonly found in Long- 
fellow's writings. There is considerable action also; the 
story has variety, movement, and a distinct dramatic quality, 
so that the interest does not flag. The hexameter line is used 
with even greater skill than in Evangeline. Withal, The 
Courtship of Miles Standish is one of the most charming romantic 
tales in all poetry. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863) consists of a group of stories, 
either heard or read by Longfellow, arranged somewhat after 
the manner of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The tellers of 
these poetic tales are supposed to be gathered at an old inn in 
Sudbury, Massachusetts. Many of the characters represent 
the poet's friends in and about Boston, Longfello^^v's wide 



204 AMERICAN LITER A.TURE 

reading in various national literatures is shown in the Tales. 
Among the more famihar poems included in the series are 
'Taul Revere's Ride," ''King Robert of Sicily," and 'The 
Birds of Killingworth." 

Literary Characteristics and Contribution. — Simplicity, 
purity, tenderness, beauty, — these are the words that fitly 
characterize Longfellow's poetry as well as his hfe. In 
temperament he was an artist, and he accordingly had a 
delicate sense of beauty. His verse is full of gentle melody. 
The music of his lines often saves them from dreary common- 
place. His culture was wide, and it permeates his writings as 
an aroma. His poetry lacks vigor, originality, and strength, 
but it has the homely household virtues. He is our great 
domestic poet, "the laureate of the common human heart," as 
he has been aptly called. And, indeed, it is no small achieve- 
ment to have won the affection of the masses in this and other 
lands, where greater geniuses have failed. This popularity is 
not due to depth of thought, but to feeling and moral sound- 
ness joined with charm of style. Longfellow's poetry does not 
exalt, but it comforts, soothes, and heartens one for the common 
tasks of life. 

Among the more specific contributions of Longfellow the 
following are specially noteworthy: (1) The bringing into 
American literature of extensive old-world culture. He spent 
a number of years in Europe and became intimately familiar 
with the rich and varied lore of many lands. These old legends 
he imported into his own, clothing them in pleasing verse. (2) 
He is the only American poet to write long narrative poems. 
Evangeline, Hiawatha, and The Courtship of Miles Standish, 
are well sustained stories. (3) He is the first American poet 
to weave into a long narrative the principal Indian legends. 
Hiawatha is our American epic. (4) He has brought out with 
notable success the romance of Puritanism in The Courtship of 
Miles Standish. (5) He is a great ballad-writer and sonnet- 
writer. The sonnets prefixed to Ms translation of Dante are 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 205 

the most artistic in our literature. In general, it may be said 
that, despite his diffuseness and frequent commonplaceness, 
Longfellow is hkely to continue to be the most widely read 
American poet. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891) 

His Life. — James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, February 22, 1819, at Elmwood, the comfortable three-story 
house in the large yard in the outskirts of the old university town. He 
came of an old New England family, whose name has for generations 
been prominent in commercial and professional life: his grandfather 
was a lawyer, his father a clergyman, one uncle gave its name to the 
city of Lowell and another founded the Lowell Institute in Boston. 
Lowell's mother was a woman of fine musical ability and imaginative 
temperament, and she used to read the boy to sleep from Spenser's 
Fairie Queenc. Thus, like many another poet, Lowell early became 
acquainted with the mellifluous verse of this Elizabethan romancer. 
At Harvard, which he entered in 1834, he read, as he says, ' 'almost 
everything except the textbooks prescribed by the faculty." Thus he 
became acquainted with the older English classics, some of the great 
Italian poets, particularly Dante, and with Montaigne among the older 
French writers. Indeed, he was a leader among the more intellectual 
youths, with whom in those days at Harvard the love of literature 
amounted to a passion. For his neglect of certain prescribed, college 
duties Lowell was in his senior year ''rusticated" at Concord, being 
allowed, however, to return in time for graduation; as he was not per- 
mitted to read his class poem, he distributed printed copies among his 
classmates. During this stay at Concord he came to know Emerson, 
with whom he walked and talked, without, however, accepting his 
transcendental ideas. 

After taking his degree in 1838, Lowell entered the Harvard Law 
School, from which he graduated two years later. But law was not to 
his taste, and after remaining for a year or two in an office in Boston 
waiting in vain for clients, during which time he was reading and wTiting 
verse, he gave up the law and became editor of The Pioneer. This period- 
ical had a brief career, but among the contributors to the three num- 
bers which did appear were Hawthorne, Poe, Whittier, besides Lowell. 
When the magazine failed, Lowell went to New York, where he remained 
one winter. In 1843 he published a volume of poems and the next year 
a prose work on the older English poets. That same year (1844) he 



206 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



married Miss Maria White, to whom he had been engaged for some time; 
chiefly through her influence he became an ardent abolitionist. 

After spending a few months in Philadelphia as an editorial writer on 
an anti-slavery paper, he returned to Cambridge and for the next six 
years lived quietly at Elmwood, writing poetry and reading widely in 
several literatures. In these years at home were begun some of the 
enduring friendships of his life; during this time, too, the first great 
sorrow of his life came in the loss of' his little daughter Blanche. In 
1851 he went to Europe, and remained for nearly a year in Italy. Mrs. 
Lowell died in 1853, and there passed out of his life the companionship 
of a gifted woman of lofty ideals. In 1854-'55 Lowell delivered a course 
of lectures at the Lowell Institute. The same year he was appointed 
to the Smith Professorship of Belles-Lettres at Harvard as successor 
to Longfellow, a position which he held, with the exception of an interval 
of two years in Europe, imtil 1877. Before entering upon his duties as 
college professor he spent another year abroad in study. At Harvard 
for over twenty years he gave courses in Italian, Spanish, and French lit- 
eratures, and proved himself an inspiring teacher. 

For four years (1857-'61) Lowell was editor of the Atlantic Monthlyy 
and frpm 1864 to 1872 of the North American Review, Of the Atlantic Monthly 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 207 

he was the first editor, and to him and Holmes is due in large measure 
the distinctive literary character of that periodical. The years 1872-'74 
he spent in Europe; honorary degrees were conferred upon him by the 
great English universities. 

Lowell's diplomatic career began in 1877 when he was appointed 
Minister to Spain. Aside from his eminence as a man of letters, he had 
come into prominence politically through his attacks on certain corrup- 
tions in public life in the administrations following the Civil War and 
also through his selection as delegate to the Republican Convention 
and as presidential elector in 1876. His appointment as Minister to 
Spain revived the fine traditions of the days of Washington Irving. In 
1880 he was transferred to England, where he represented his country 
until 1885. As Minister to England he was exceedingly popular; no public 
occasion seemed complete without a speech from him. No other Ameri- 
can representative ever did so much to interpret America to our British 
cousins. Welcomed as "His Excellency the Ambassador of American 
Literature to the Court of Shakespeare," Lowell was more than a liter- 
ary man; his firm administration of his office, his tactfulness, his demo- 
cracy, and his social gifts, won the admiration of Englishmen and Ameri- 
cans. 

Lowell returned to his dear Elmwood in 1885. Certain partisan and 
sensational newspapers, as usual, attacked his record as our representa- 
tive abroad, accusing him of un-American manners and utterances. 
This provinicial patriotism sooner or later of course recoils upon the 
inventors' heads; all liberal-minded men know that Lowell was not only 
thoroughly democratic, but a gentleman and man of the world at the 
same time, and therefore a national interpreter in the best sense. His 
last days were spent in retirement in his ancestral home. The second 
Mrs. Lowell had died in England. His old friends Emerson and Long- 
fellow were dead; Holmes remained, together with such younger men 
as Curtis, Norton, and Howells. In his library at Elmwood he was 
again joined to his poets and philosophers; in the elms he heard the 
robins welcome the springime as of yore and saw the dandelions dot 
the green with gold. He turned once more to the muses: 

Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse 

Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? 

I take my reed again and blow it free 

Of dusty silence, murmuring, "Sing to me!" 

It is seldom given to a man to spend his life in the house in which he 
was born, but such was Lowell's happy lot. At Elmwood he died on 



208 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



August 12, 1891, and was laid to rest in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, almost 
across the way, just below the ridge where Longfellow lies. 

His Personality. — ''He was fond of everything human and 
natural/^ says Henry James, ^ ''everything that had color and 
character, and no gayety, no sense of comedy, was ever more 
easily kindled by contact. When he was not surrounded by 
great pleasures he could find his account in small ones.'' Lowell 
was an intensely vital man and therefore an interesting person- 
ality. Those who knew him speak of his perennial youth- 




ELMWOOD 
Lowell's Home, Cambridge, Mass. 



fulness, his "robust and humorous optimism," his urbane and 
whimsical manner. He was the lovable companion, the in- 
comparable talker. Whether as teacher, suggestively com- 
menting in his serio-quizzical way on a passage in Dante, or as a 
host at Elmwood poking the fire and intimately chatting with 
a guest, or as diplomat exchanging fehcities with British 
statesmen, or as literary orator dedicating memorials to poets, 

^The Century Magazine, January, 1892. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 209 

he was ever the cultivated gentleman, the accomplished man 
of the world, whose immense range of knowledge and observa- 
tion had not dulled his freshness of tone or chilled his enthusi- 
asms. 

Humorist and satirist though he was and of an irrepressible 
gayety when the mood was on, Lowell was nevertheless a man 
of great moral earnestness. In some of his best-known poems 
this trait appears as stern and uncompromising as it was in his 
ancestors; the Puritan conscience was in him, in spite of his 
modernness and his varied culture and his quizzical play of 
wit. There was deep within him, moreover, a childlike quality 
of sympathy which won people to him. It is said that once in 
London he was passing a building with the inscription, ''Home 
for Incurable Children. '^ After reading the sign, Lowell 
turned to his companion and remarked, with his whimsical 
smile: ''Ah, they will take me there some day." These various 
and often contradictory elements of his personality may best 
be seen in his letters, which are among the most charming in 
American literature. 

His Poetry. — From his boyhood Lowell had been a writer 
of verses, and at Harvard he freely exercised his talent. The 
early poems show the influence of Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, 
and Tennyson. Indeed, some of them are little more than 
clever imitations. The classical allusions reveal Lowell's 
extensive reading, while the echoes of older Enghsh poets prove 
how well acquainted he was with the Ehzabethans. Most 
of the earlier verse is short and lyric in nature; there are some 
fine sonnets, personal tributes, and an occasional nature poem, 
though much of the nature poetry belongs to later years. 
Among these first productions are ''Stanzas on Freedom," 
"The Shepherd of King Admetus," "O Moonhght deep and 
tender," "An Incident in a Railroad Car" (a tribute to Burns's 
influence on uncultured men), and "Rhoecus," the story of the 
youth who suffered for his scorn of nature. 



210 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The first notable poem of Lowell is ''The Present Crisis'' 
(1845), written when the annexation of Texas was being 
agitated. Believing that this would mean the extension of 
slavery he voiced his opposition in the ringing hnes of this 
well-known poem. The application, however, is far more 
general, and certain stanzas continue to be quoted in reference 
to any crisis in which error seems for the time about to triumph 
over truth. Perhaps no other poem of Lowell has so often 
served public speakers in driving home a great moral lesson. 
The last stanza, beginning — 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side, — 

and the final stanza, beginning — 

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast 
of truth, — 

are the most famihar; but, in a broad comforting sense, this 
stanza is more striking: 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 

The year 1848 was Lowell's annus mirahilis: in that year 
appeared three of his greatest poems — The Fable for Critics, 
The Vision of Sir Launfal, and the first series of The Biglow 
Papers. The Fable for Critics was written with headlong 
speed for the author's own amusement. Taking as a sort of 
framework the old classic fable of Apollo under the laurel tree, 
he rather whimsically introduces to the god a number of con- 
temporary literary people. The salient characteristics of 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 211 

each one are happily hit off. The estimates of Emerson, 
Bryant, Hawthorne, Cooper, Irving, Poe, and Holmes, are in 
the main those of posterity, and show that Lowell was a sympa- 
thetic critic of keen insight. The poem is in rhyming couplets, 
after the fashion of Byron's English Bards and Scotch Re- 
viewers, but without the bitterness of that stinging satire. 
The Vision of Sir Launfal is probably the most popular poem 
of Lowell now; this is due, no doubt, to the very obvious moral 
lesson which it carries. It is the triumph of charity . over 
selfishness in the soul of the knight; suffering brings a feehng 
of sympathy and brotherhood. The plot is Lowell's own, and 
the rhapsody on June (his favorite month) and other nature- 
descriptions make the setting more artistic than the story itself. 
The poem has many quotable lines : 

'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking. 

And what is so rare as a day in June? 

Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare. 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and kno-/ it not. 

The Biglow Papers is Lowell's most original production in 
verse. The first series was completed in 1845, and was begun 
as a satire on the Mexican War; the second series belongs to 
the Civil War period. The poems constituting The Biglow 
Papers are in the Yankee dialect, with which Lowell was 
remarkably familiar. The use of dialect was favorable to 
humor and satire as well as to great freedom of expression. 
Moreover, as a student of language, Lowell was interested in 
local peculiarities of speech, which he took the liberty of 
greatly exaggerating for humorous effect. The supposed 



212 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

author of the papers is Hosea Biglow, a canny New England 
farmer. His comments are full of native common sense. Here 
are several epigrams: 

Don't never prophesy — onless ye know. 

A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, 

Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em too hard. 

Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, 
Ez though 'twuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; 
But yit we du contrive to worry thru, 
Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du. 

Democ'cacy gives every man 
The right to be his o\mi oppressor. 

In the first series of The Biglow Payers, protest is made 
against the extension of slavery to a new state, Texas; in the 
second series, a plea is made for its entire suppression. The 
first is more spontaneous, for in the second Lowell's interest in 
the linguistic phase of his subject made the schoolmaster too 
prominent. The satire is exceedingly clever, but shall we call 
it poetry? To-day, however \0y2l one may be to Lowell, one 
soon has enough of The Biglow Payers. As Professor Cairns 
remarks: * 'Lowell never knew when to stop fooling, once he 
had begun." 

In the second series of The Biglow Payers there are two 
poems which merit special mention — ''The Courtin'" and 
"Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line." "The Courtin"' is the 
best lyric of its kind in American verse; it is a little New 
England pastoral perfectly depicting a fireside scene, of which 
a coyly conscious maiden and a bashful youth are the center: 

He kin' o' litered on the mat, 

Some doubtfie o' the sekle, 
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat. 

But hern went pity Zekle. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 213 

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" 
"Wal . . no . . I come dasignin' — " 

''To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin to-morrow's inin." 

To say why gals acts so or so, 

Or don't, 'ould be persumin'; , 
Mebby to mean yes an' say no 

Comes nateral to women. 

But the poem is too familiar to need quotation; the twenty- 
four stanzas make a unity which should not be broken anyhow. 
*'Suthin' in the Pastoral Line" is fresh with bits of nature- 
description. 

The later poems of Lowell include the fine ''Harvard Com- 
memoration Ode," probably the best ode in American litera- 
ture; ''L'Envoi/' which in sentiment belongs with such ideahstic 
poems as Longfellow's /'Excelsior," Emerson's "Forerunners," 
and Poe's "Eldorado"; "The Washers of the Shroud," one of 
Lowell's greatest; "Agassiz," an elegy on the eminent scientist; 
and "Under the Old Elm" (1875), read at the hundredth 
anniversary of Washington's taking command of the American 
troops under the old elm in Cambridge. The following lines 
form the conclusion of the "Commemoration Ode" and are in 
Lowell's best manner: 

O Beautiful! my country! ours once more! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 

And letting thy set lips, 

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 
The rosy edges of thy smile lay bare, 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
Among the Nations bright beyond compare? 

What were our lives without thee? 

What all our lives to save thee? 

We reck not what we gave thee; 

We will not dare to doubt thee. 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare I 



214 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Poetic Qualities. — Lowell is one of our finest nature poets; 
his feeling for nature, especially the gentler aspects, is dehcate, 
one may almost say, dainty. *'To the Dandelion,'^ ^'dear 
common flower," is exquisite and heartfelt. He succeeded 
well with humorous verse and satire : there is nothing in Ameri- 
can poetry just like the Fable for Critics , with its pungent and 
yet genial T\dt, and there is nothing in English or American 
poetry like The Biglow Papers. He is pre-eminently the poet 
of great occasions: patriotic celebrations, anniversaries of 
hterary importance, pohtical crises, found in Lowell a masterful 
and accomplished spokesman. His later verse has great 
dignity and distinction. He was able to coin portable and 
inspiring phrases, particularly for youth; as, for instance, his 
well-known line in 'Tor an Autograph": 

Greatly begin! though thou have time 
But for a line, be that sublime, — 
Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 

His limitations are evident enough to the thoughtful reader: 
prosaic lines now and then lower the warmth and weaken the 
tone of his verse; his Elizabethan fondness for punning some- 
times spoils an artistic effect; his lack of concreteness often 
leaves a vague impression, a defect doubtless due to his academic 
temper. His later poetry tends to become involved and ab- 
stract. 

His Prose. — Four volumes contain the best of Lowell's 
prose work: Among My Books (1870), My Study Windows 
(1871), Among My Books, Second Series (1876), and Democracy 
and Other Addresses (1886). Some of these essays originally 
appeared in the two great magazines of which he was at 
different times the editor, some are addresses deUvered in 
England and at home. They cover a wide range — Dante, 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Keats, 
Wordsworth, Lessing^ Rousseau, Carlyle, ''My Garden 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 215 

Acquaintance," "A Good Word for Winter," "On A Certain 
Condescension in Foreigners," ^'Democracy." 

The first thing that impresses the reader of Lowell's essays 
is the immense fund of his ready information. His allusions 
are almost as numerous and bewildering as Macaulay's. His 
Hterary essays are generally on individuals, but one is more 
interested in the man who is treating them — ^in his fresh, 
inspiring enthusiasm, — than in the subjects dicussed. Lowell 
pours out for you his varied knowledge in endless profusion, 
illuminating it with happy turns of thought, flashes of wit, 
and scattering over his pages with prodigal carelessness jewels 
or flowers gathered from a thousand fields. On his subject 
his rich fancy plays until you see it as he sees it. That is what 
he wishes you to do. He is not methodic; sometimes he seems 
pedantic ; again he is full of caprice, and keeps you guessing as 
to what he may say next. If he cannot find a word to suit 
him, he unhesitatingly coins one, and you will understand it 
if perchance you are well versed in Hteratures and languages, 
but you will hardly find it in the dictionary. In any case, he 
will stimulate you to read more; his tricksy turns of phrase, his 
brilliant epigrams, even his puns, will amuse you, stir your 
imagination, or make you think. No other American critic 
has been able to talk more brilliantly and intimately on ap- 
parently threadbare literary subjects. 

Like Matthew Arnold, Lowell used the comparative and 
appreciative method in literary criticism; his wide reading 
and trustworthy memory enabled him to draw on several 
hteratures for illustrations and to quote apposite sayings from 
any given writer. His essay on Dante, for instance, though 
too long for most readers, is better than a. formal treatise for 
any one who really wants to catch the spirit of Dante, The 
essay on Chaucer gives an insight into that poet which more 
scholastic and more technically exact dissertations do not 
furnish. Indeed, one might begin with this essay, as has been 
suggested, and by reading in order the other poets discussed by 



216 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Lowell down to Wordsworth, gain a respectable knowledge of 
the development of English poetry from the Renaissance to 
modern times. He who appreciatively reads Lowell's essays 
might be said to be liberally educated. They are not particu- 
larly easy reading, for they demand intelligent concentration 
and presuppose culture, but they are so bright and so human 
withal that they abundantly repay the effort they at first cost. 
A few quotations from the essays will illustrate, though in- 
adequately, Lowell's way of saying things: 

With Dante the main question is the saving of the soul, with Chaucer 
it is the conduct of life. 

The young demand thoughts that find an echo in their real and not 
their acquired nature, and care very little about the dress they are 
put in. It is later that we learn to like the conventional, as we do olives. 

The aim of the artist is psychologic, not historic truth. 

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power 
a man is. 

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. 

Lowell was one of the most patriotic of men, as his notable 
address on ''Democracy," dehvered in Birmingham, England, 
in 1884, shows. This speech gave to Englishmen a clearer 
conception of American democracy than any other discussion 
of that subject they had heard or read. It has, in truth, become 
a classic utterance, which every American should read. Its 
dominant note is idealistic and optimistic; the following 
sentence expresses a fundamental sentiment in his political 
creed: *'I believe that the real will never find an irremovable 
basis until it rests on the ideal." Out of the basal moral 
element in his character sprang the nobility of his own ideals. 

General Estimate. — Lowell is the most versatile of American 
literary men. He was editor, teacher, diplomat, reformer, 
public speaker, poet, and essayist; in all these activities he 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 217 

acquitted nimself with credit, in most of them with rare dis- 
tinction. That he did so many things well may have kept him 
from being supremely great in any one thing. He knew a 
great deal and had a remarkable facility of expression; he is 
the most broadly cultured of our writers. In the field of 
literary criticism, only one other among our standard authors 
can justly be named along with him, and that is Edgar Allan 
Poe; and Lowell was better equipped than Poe. Like Poe, 
too, he succeeded equally well in both poetry and prose, but 
he lacks the genius of Poe. With his extraordinary gifts and 
his almost universal culture, Lowell somehow just missed 
being a genius. He had not the patience necessary to the most 
enduring fruits of genius; he wrought too rapidly, and he 
failed to use the file; revision and suppression would have 
helped. But when all is said, the impressive fact remains that 
Lowell is our best rounded literary man. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894) 

His Life. — Oliver Wendell Holmes came of a long line of distinguished 
ancestry, among whom were the Phillipses, the Wendells, the Han- 
cocks, the Quincys, and the Bradstreets. From Anne Bradstreet, the 
first American poetess, he was directly descended. These names are 
prominent in the political, religious, and literary history of Massa- 
chusetts. Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 
1809, birthyear of half a dozen noted men. The house of his father, 
pastor of the First Church, stood near the Harvard yard — "the house 
with the gambrel roof,*' mentioned frequently in Holmes's writings. 
Young Holmes was educated at Phillips Andover Academy and at Har- 
vard, from which he graduated in the famous class of '29, so often cele- 
brated by him in verse. At the Harvard Law School he studied a year, 
then turned to medicine, carrying on his studies two years abroad, 
mostly in Paris, and graduating at the Harvard Medical School in 1836. 
During the next four years he was occasionally composing poetry, writ- 
ing on medical subjects, and lecturing for a while at Dartmouth College, 
New Hampshire. In 1840 he began to practice medicine in Boston; 
that same year he married Miss Amelia Lee Jackson. In 1847 he became 
Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Harvard Medical School, 
and held this position as active and emeritus professor until his death 
forty-seven years later. 



218 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

— - — ^— "H 



r 



t. 



'^- % 




OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

In 1857 the Atlantic Monthly was established, with James Russell 
Lowell as its first editor. This position was accepted by Lowell on 
condition that Holmes, who had named the new magazine, should be 
a regular contributor. In the first number he accordingly began his 
well-known ''Breakfast Table" series. Lowell remarked later in his 
characteristic vein: "You see the Doctor is like a bright mountain 
stream that has been damjned up among the hills, and is waiting for an 
outlet into the Atlantic." To Holmes, in truth, this great periodical 
owes much in the formation of that high literary character which has 
always distinguished it. From this time on Holmes became more 
distinctly a man of letters, though his regular profession did not suffer 
through his interest in literature. Many of his best poems were written 
in the twenty years following his first connection with the Atlantic 
Monthly in 1857; some of the most familiar of these first appeared in the 
contributions later published as the ''Breakfast Table" volumes. Of 
the poems independently issued, those on his class reunions — annually 
celebrated in verse for thirty-nine years — form a notable series. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 219 

The years passed uneventfully for the genial Autocrat, varied by 
occasional trips to Europe. Academic honors came to him at home 
and abroad. When he appeared on the platform at Oxford to receive 
his D. C. L. from the old English University, the students in the gallery 
called out: ''Did he come in the 'One-Hoss Shay' ?" At three-score 
years and ten he said he was "seventy years young." He outlived all 
the other New England poets, dying on October 7, 1894. He is buried 
in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, not far from Longfellow and 
Lowell. 

His Personality. — Oliver Wendell Holmes was a representa- 
tive New Englander of the cultured class. He was to the 
manner born, and this will account for his somewhat aristocratic 
and conservative leanings. He liked the best in the old, but 
he was nevertheless eager to keep abreast of the new. Mental 
alertness and ingenuity are evident characteristics; these 
appear in his interest in all sorts of people and things and in his 
inventiveness. He liked to experiment with various mechanical 
devices, such as the microscope, the camera, and the safety 
razor; he actually invented the small hand-stereoscope. His 
versa tihty was great. He was fond of dabbling in psychology; 
questions of heredity specially interested him. 

Personally Holmes was a genial, cheery, buoyant soul, with 
an optimistic outlook on life and a philosopher's insight into 
human nature. The boy never died in him; the joy of living, 
the love of fun, dehght in queer things, he never lost. His 
humor was kindl}^, sometimes shading into pathos, and his wit 
was keen. So genial was he, so companionable, so human, 
that his sharp sayings did not hurt. He was probably the best 
talker and the most dehghtful dinner-guest of his time in 
Boston. But, humorist though he was, there was in him, as 
in all real humorists, a deep inner seriousness: ^'Outside I 
laugh," he once remarked, ^'inside I never laugh. It is im- 
possible. The world is too sad." 

His Poetry. — Throughout his Hfe literature was with Holmes 
an important avocation, a relief from his exacting duties as 



220 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



lecturer and writer on medicine. He began writing poetry as 
a college boy, and when he was twenty-one his first important 
poem was published in the Daily Advertiser of Boston. This 
was '^Old Ironsides," a ringing protest against the proposed 
destruction of the old frigate Constitution, which had done 
valiant service in the War of 1812. The authorities at Washing- 
ton were soon impressed by the wave of popular indignation at 
the order to demoHsh the unseaworthy old boat, and counter- 
manded it. Thus, for at least once in history, a lyric poem by 



.^ \, ■^^z 




BIRTHPLACE OF HOLMES 

Cambridse, Jlass. 



a college boy changed a government order. ''Old Ironsides'' 
is a serious enough poem, but most of Holmes's other early 
verse — ^that written between 1830 and 1848 — is humorous. 

The best-known poem of these years, and, indeed, one of the 
famous lyrics in American literature, is "The Last Leaf" (1832), 
a "unique compound of humor and pathos," as W^hittier said. 
Lincoln thought the little poem "inexpressibly touching," and 
Edgar Allan Poe liked it well enough to make a careful copy of 
it. The figure of Major Thomas Melville, well known in 
Boston as "the last of the cocked hats," was the original of 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 221 

that described in the poem. ''His aspect," says Holmes 
''among the crowds of a later generation reminded me of a 
withered leaf which has held to its stem through the storms 
of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its bough 
while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and 
spreading their foliage all around it." One stanza in particular 
is often quoted as an example of the perfect harmony of sense 
and sound — pathetic suggestion in a minor key: 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has pressed 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 
On the tomb. 

After Holmes began his "Breakfast Table" series in 1857, 
many of his poems appeared for the first time in one of those 
entertaining papers. Among these are "The Chambered 
Nautilus" and the "One-Hoss Shay," one serious and one 
humorous. Few stanzas in our poetry are more often quoted 
than the concluding lines of "The Chambered Nautilus": 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 

The poem was "suggested by looking at a section of one of 
those chambered shells to which is given the name Pearly 
Nautilus." This is a poem which every youth would do well 
to commit to memory. 

Three other serious poems deserve special mention: "The 
Voiceless," "Under the Violets," and "Dorothy Q." The 



222 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

first is in honor of silent poets, of whom there are very many i n 
the world, — 

Those that never sing, 
But die with all their music in them. 

"Under the Violets" is a lyric, worthy of the English poets, 
Collins and Gray, on the resting place of a young girl: 

If any, born of kindlier blood. 

Should ask. What maiden lies below? 

Say only this: A tender bud. 

That tried to blossom in the snow, 
Lies withered where the violets blow. 

"Dorothy Q'^ is one of those poems in which Holmes shows his 
pride in his ancestry, an exquisite tribute to Dorothy Quincy, 
inspired by her portrait. 

During the war Holmes wrote a few patriotic poems, the 
drift of which is a plea for a restored union. There is no 
bitterness in these, for the author was too liberal in spirit for 
caustic speech, but they breathe an ardent wish for an un- 
broken sisterhood of states. The best of these war poems are 
"Brother Jonathan to Sister Caroline" (South Carolina), 
""Union and Liberty," and "Voyage of the Good Ship Union." 

The class-reunion poems hold a unique place in American 
verse. Every year from 1851 to 1889 Holmes brought a poem 
to the annual meeting of his college class (the "famous class of 
'29"). These productions are distinctly typical of their author, 
revealing not only his loyalty to his Alma Mater and his class- 
mates but also his love of country and his devotion to Boston 
and Cambridge. Noteworthy among these pieces are "The 
Boys" (1859), "Bill and Joe" (1868), "The Shadows" (1880), 
and "After the Curfew" (1889). In this connection should be 
mentioned Holmes's tributes to his fellow-poets in the Cam- 
bridge group and to Whittier, all of whom he survived— 
*the last leaf upon the tree." One by one the members of the 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 223 

"Saturday Club," that distinguished coterie of congenial 
spirits in Boston, passed into the shadows, and Holmes was 
left, the last of the immortals. 

An account of Holmes's verse would be incomplete without 
at least a passing reference to his great vesper hymn, which he 
named **A Sun-Day Hymn" the first and last stanzas of which 
are: 

Lord of all being! throned afar, 

Thy glory flames from sun and star; 

Center and soul of every sphere, 

Yet to each loving heart how near I 



Grant us thy truth to make us free, 
And kindling hearts that burn for thee, 
Till all thy living altars claim 
One holy light, one heavenly flame! 



Poetic Qualities. — The word ''social" fairly describes the 
most characteristic of Holmes's verses. He had a deep and 
engaging social instinct. Many of his pieces are what is 
technically known as ''familiar verse" (vers de societe, as the 
French call it). In form and spirit his poetry is conservative, 
suggesting his attachment to the seventeenth and eighteenth 
century English poets. Some lines remind one of the "Cavaher 
poets," others are reminiscent of Pope or Collins or Gray. 
His wit and humor are sparkling and crisp. He has almost 
succeeded in making humorous verse great poetry; and when 
he has blended pathos and humor, he has succeeded still better. 
He does not delve very deep nor fly very high, preferring to 
skim with level wing the surface of life; but now and then he 
sounds the depths of friendship and patriotism. 

More specifically Holmes is the poet of Boston. Others may 
sing of New England in general or in spots; with Holmes, 
Boston is the spot.^ He is, moreover, the ready poet of 

^His opinion is thus expressed in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: 
"Boston State House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry 
that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened 
out for a crowbar," 



224 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

social occasions : his verses on class reunions and other personal 
celebrations entitle him to be called a great occasional poet. 
He is, therefore, a notable singer of friendship and loyalty in 
graceful, tuneful, witty verse, in which the head never triumphs 
at the expense of the heart. 

His Prose. — The prose works of Holmes, aside from his 
medical writings, consist of the '^Breakfast Table'' series and 
other personal narrative-talks, three novels, and two biog- 
raphies. 

The famous ''Breakfast Table" series consists of three 
volumes — The Autocrat, The Professor, and The Poet. The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1857) is a loose, personal essay- 
narrative on the sayings and doings at an imaginary boarding- 
house breakfast table in Boston. The work is mostly a con- 
versational monologue by the Autocrat himself, with just 
enough talk by the other boarders to give an air of naturalness 
to the scene. The Autocrat discourses in an entertaining 
vein on all sorts of subjects — mutual admiration societies, 
genius, the essentials of good conversation, specialists, puns, 
poetry, old age, theology. Excellent short poems vary the 
monotony, and a little love story helps to give unity to the 
book. You may dip into it anywhere and find something to 
interest and instruct you. It is full of wise comment and 
sparkling epigram. Here, for instance, are several sentences 
chosen at random: 

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned. 

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and 
the fools know it. 

Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them 
up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of 
the Angel of the Resurrection. 

It is by little things that we know ourselves; a soul would very prob- 
ably mistake itself for another, when once disembodied, were it not 



THE :NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 225 

for individual experiences which differ from those of others only in 
details seemingly trifling. 

The clergy rarely hear any sermons except what they preach them- 
selves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse into 
a state of quasi heathenism, simply for want of religious instruction. 

The Autocrat contains Holmes's best talk. Many of the 
striking sayings had no doubt been actually used by him at 
Boston dinner tables. In the two succeeding books, The 
Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859) and The Poet at the 
Breakfast Table (1872), the good talk goes on, but with, less 
spontaneity and variety than in the j&rst volume. ''The 
first pressing of the grapes,'' as he called it, naturally resulted 
in a more sparkling effect. The Professor is a little heavy and 
didactic, but The Poet, written twelve years later, shows more 
of the pleasing quaUties of the earhest work. Holmes was 
forty-eight when he contributed The Autocrat papers to the 
Atlantic Monthly and found a new outlet for his genius; he was 
over eighty when Over the Tea Cups was finished. These 
evening talks, which also appeared in the Atlantic, are cheerful 
and kindly, spiced with wit and mellowed with the wisdom that 
wide experience and enduring friendships had brought. Despite 
their reminiscent and subdued tone, however, they reveal 
Holmes's keen interest in new problems. It was simply im- 
possible for him to grow old mentally. 

While Holmes's reputation as a prose writer depends upon 
the ''Breakfast Table" series, passing mention must be made 
of the three novels — Elsie Venner, The Guardian Angel, and 
A Mortal Antipathy. These stories are concerned with 
questions of heredity and moral responsibility. Elsie Venner's 
mother was bitten by a rattlesnake before the child's birth, 
and the daughter shows the effects of, it in a strange, non- 
human element in her nature. In The Guardian Angel the 
power of certain hereditary tendencies is traced. Miles 
Gridley in this book is the most attractive of Holmes'g charao- 



226 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ters. A Mortal Antipathy is the story of the rescue of a young 
man, ill with typhoid fever, from a burning building by an 
athletic college girl and the curing in him of a long and deep- 
seated aversion to her sex. The first two novels are the best, 
though neither is a great book. So permeated with medical 
knowledge are these three novels, that a friend of the author 
aptly called them ''medicated fiction." 

Holmes wrote a memoir of the historian, John Lothrop 
Motley, and a biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both were 
his friends and are treated in a sympathetic and charming 
manner, though Holmes was temperamently unable to under- 
stand the transcendental side of Emerson's nature. 

It is likely that posterity will think of Holmes as the author 
of a handful of clever poems and of one exceedingly readable 
prose work. The Autocrat, There is nothing else in American 
literature just like that delightful, chatty book. It suggests 
Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Lamb's Essays of Elia, and Christo- 
pher North's Nodes Amhrosianae, but it is different from all 
these English classics. The ''Breakfast Table" series has a 
flavor all its own. It is an original contribution to literature. 
In this pellucid prose a genial, witty, richly cultured gentleman 
of infallible taste and kindly human heart perfectly revealed 
himself to his fellowmen. 

THE HISTORIANS AND THE ORATORS 

History and oratory belong to literature when, by reason of 
the artistic style and pleasing personality of writer and speaker, 
they make a permanent appeal to the imagination and the 
emotions. Much historical writing has no literary quality; 
facts are set forth in a dry way, scientifically accurate but 
without illuminating grace or dramatic effect. The main 
things to be desired in a history are, of course, accuracy and 
clearness of statement, based '^ painstaking investigation. 
Now and then, however, a man of literary sensibihty, with a 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 227 

genius for graphic narration and description, writes history with 
such briUiancy and intensity that in addition to its scientific 
valuQ it possesses literary merit. We find this combination, 
for instance, in Gibbon, the Enghsh historian; and also in 
Macaulay and Carlyle, though the one is sometimes over 
brilliant and the other over dramatic. The New England 
historians of literary interest are Prescott, Bancroft, Motley, 
Parkman, and Fiske. 

Most pubhc speeches perish after the causes which they 
advocate have triumphed or failed; they are not interesting 
to newer generations. Occasionally, however, a speaker deals 
in so vital and artistic a manner with some fundamental princi- 
ple in the life of a nation, such as liberty or love of country, 
that what he says makes a permanent appeal to the hearts of 
men. Such a speech becomes a part of literature. Among 
the New England orators of this period only one is universally 
recognized as a great classic, and that is Daniel Webster; others, 
still famous but of lessening renown, are Choate, Sumner, 
Everett, and Phillips. We may now rapidly consider the 
principal New England historians and orators. 

The Historians 

George Bancroft (1800-1891). — George Bancroft was born 
at Worcester, Massachusetts, educated at Harvard, from which 
he graduated in 1817, and at the University of Goettingen, 
Germany, from which he received the degree of doctor of 
philosophy in 1820. After tutoring in Greek a year at Harvard, 
he helped to found a school at Northampton, and while teaching 
there pubhshed a small volume of poems. Later on, he held 
several official positions, serving as Secretary of the Navy 
under President Polk and as minister to England and to 
Germany. From 1849 to his death in 1891 his home was in 
New York. 

In 1834 Bancroft published the first volume of his monumen- 
tal History of the United States. To the completion of this 



228 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

great work he devoted the best energies of his life for fifty years. 
It is in twelve volumes, covering the history of the country 
from the discovery of America to the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion in 1788. Seven volumes are given to the American 
Revolution, and the last two to the formation of the Constitu- 
tion. Bancroft was a painstaking investigator and a lucid 
writer, but his fondness for digressions and his almost excessive 
patriotism sometimes break the unity and injure the perspective 
of his work. Moreover, his style, particularly in the earlier 
volumes, is somewhat inflated; this defect, which is less notice- 
able in the latter part, was due to his desire to adapt his 
language to the stateliness of his theme. His history is a 
monument to American scholarship. Bancroft was a pioneer 
in that newer, scientific historical method in which Jared 
Sparks, Professor of History in Harvard College from 1839 to 
1849, led the way. Sparks was really the founder in America 
of the modern historical school. , 

William H. Prescott (1796-1859).— WiUiam Hickling Prescott 
was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard. 
While in college he lost the sight of one eye from an accident 
(he was struck by a piece of bread thrown by a fellow student 
at table), and was threatened with total bhndness. In spite 
of the handicap of such an affliction, he decided to devote his 
fife to historical writing. Fortunately, he was independent 
financially and could, therefore, employ copyists to visit the 
countries whose history he wished to write, and make records 
of important documents. These were generally read to him, 
for he could use his eyes in reading only a little while at a time, 
and with the help of his secretary he wrote out his few pages 
daily. He worked in a darkened room, used an instrument 
called a noctograph to guide his hand over the paper, and by 
careful diet and exercise conserved his strength in order that 
what little eyesight he had left might not be lost. His patient 
labor at his task under such an infirmity is, in the light of his 
great achievement, one of the heroisms of literature. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 229 

Prescott's first work, The History of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
came out in 1837; it had been preceded by years of labor in 
mastering the Spanish language and the immense number of 
documents necessary to the full understanding of the subject. 
On each work, indeed, Prescott toiled in the same slow and 
painful way. The Conquest of Mexico followed in six years, 
and in 1847 The Conquest of Peru was pubhshed. At the 
time of his death in 1859 Prescott had completed three of the 
four projected volumes of what he regarded as his greatest 
work. The History of Philip II. He was a pioneer in the 
romantic field of Spanish conquest in America, a part of the 
background of which Irving had rapidly explored, and the 
subject was fresh and fascinating to readers. But more 
fascinating than the facts is Prescott's style; the new books 
read like novels, so vivid and even gorgeous is the descrip- 
tion, so graphic is the narrative. They were written with 
extreme care, and if they are not scientifically accurate, it is 
more the fault of the old chroniclers than of their laborious 
interpreter whose histories have at any rate made that vanished 
time live again in the imagination. 

John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877).— John Lothrop Motley 
was born near Boston, and educated at Harvard and the uni- 
versities of Berlin and Goettingen. He had prepared for 
college at Bancroft's school at Northampton, and there felt 
the stimulating influence of that rising young historian. After 
his return from Germany, Motley studied law for a while, wrote 
a novel, and in 1841 entered upon a diplomatic career, from 
which he, however, soon withdrew. Between 1861 and 1870 
he was minister to Austria and to England, but was recalled from 
England because of -a political feud at Washing-ton. Before 
his residence in Europe as American minister he had spent 
several years abroad, studying manuscript collections in 
preparation for his ambitious program of historical writing. 
The Rise of the Dutch Republic appeared in 1856, and The 



230 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

United Netherlands was completed in 1868. His last book was 
the Life of John of Barneveldt, 

Motley was a diligent student of historical sources, in the 
examination of which he spent much time and money. He 
planned an exhaustive account of the struggle for liberty in the 
Netherlands, covering a period of eighty years and ending in a 
cHmax with the Thirty Years' War. He succeeded in making 
the history of those stirring times as interesting as a novel and 
as Hvely as a play. He had already written two novels and his 
dramatic abihty was pronounced; indeed, as a young man he 
had acted in amateur theatricals and had written plays. His 
was a brilHant mind and a fertile fancy, and to this was added 
a gift for pleading a cause eloquently and effectively. He was, 
therefore, something of an advocate, and he argues for the 
Dutch Protestants so sympathetically as to in\dte the charge 
of partisanship. Still, he is in the main an authentic historian, 
and his works have high literary quality. Like Macaulay, he 
is able to characterize historical personages in such a clear-cut 
way that they seem alive. Like Carlyle, he always found a 
hero around whom to weave the tissues of history. 

FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893) 

His Life. — Francis Parkman was born in Boston in 1823. As a boy he 
spent much time at his grandfather's place, eight miles from that city, 
on the border of a great forest of four thousand acres; in this he wandered 
at will and learned the habits of wild animals and the nature of rocks 
and plants and trees. Thus, he early began the study of outdoor life, 
which was later to stand him in good stead in writing history. While a 
student at Harvard he made trips in the summer to the northern woods 
and there continued his open-air studies; he literally became "enamoured 
of the woods." He went to Europe and spent several weeks in a monas- 
tery at Rome in order that he might more intimately know the habits of 
monks, for even then he was planning a history of the Jesuit settlements 
in America. After graduation in 1844, he studied law the better to 
understand the constitutional questions involved in the subject on 
which he had chosen to write. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



231 



In 1846 Parkman went far west into the howling wilderness along 
the "Oregon trail," intent on learning at first hand the life of the 
Indians. Into one of the wildest tribes of the Sioux he managed through 
a government agent in St. Louis to gain an entrance; his desire was to 
live with them, undergo the hardships of camp and journeys, and thus 
from the inside thoroughly to familiarize himself with Indian habits. 
For this rough experience he had prepared himself by strenuous exercise 
in the gymnasium, long walks, and training under a circus manager; but 
the weeks in the Indian tribe seriously undermined his constitution and 
injured his already weak eyesight. He says he rode for weeks over the 
Black Hills ''reeling in the sad- 
dle with weakness and pain"; 
he ate with the Indians, slept 
with the Indians, hunted with 
them, danced with them, made 
himself one of them. When he 
returned to civilization, his 
sight was almost gone and his 
nervous system was all but a 
wreck. This is the price he 
paid for knowledge, but it en- 
abled him to write on Indian 
character with a sureness such 
as no man since has possessed. 
He really saw the last of the 
primitive American Indian. 
"The wild cavalcade," said he 
afterwards, "that defiled with 
me down the gorges of the Black 
Hills, with its paint and war 
plumes, fluttering trophies and 

savage embroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be 
seen again." 

He went back home and began work upon his books, publishing two 
within the five years following his return. For long .periods he was 
compelled from weakness and blindness to rest from his task, and by 
way of diversion he turned to the cultivation of roses, in which he became 
so expert that he was appointed Professor of Horticulture in Harvard 
University, a position he held for a year or two. He also wrote a book 
on rose-culture. In the preparation of his historical works, to which he 
returned when his health had improved, he found it necessary to make 
five trips to Europe to examine documents, so great was his passion for 




FRANCIS PARKMAN 



232 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

accuracy. And during all this time he labored under hardships that 
would have reduced most men to a state of passive invalidism. He 
could seldom work more than half an hour at a time, nor could he listen 
to a reader longer than that without acute nervous suffering; rarely could 
he read more than five consecutive minutes; he could scarcely see, and 
such writing as he did was done with closed eyes. For one whole half- 
year ''the rate of composition on his history averaged six lines a day." 
And yet he went on until twelve volumes were in print as a monument 
to his unconquerable will. ''The heroism," says Fiske, "shown year 
after year in contending with physical ailments was the index of a charac- 
ter fit to be mated, for its pertinacious courage, with the heroes that 
live in his shining pages." Cheerfulness and courage marked his life. 
He died in 1893, and was buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. 

His Works. — The general subject of Parkman's histories is 
the struggle between France and England for supremacy in the 
New World. Before taking up the theme proper he published 
in 1849 The California and Oregon Trail, a thrilhng account of 
his personal adventures in the West three years previous, which 
had first appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine. In 1851 
his first historical work was pubHshed, The Conspiracy of 
Pontiac, though this is properly the last of the series, if the 
order of events described should be chronologically observed. 
Arranged in that order, the histories are : Pioneers of France in 
the New World (1865); The Jesuits in North America (1867); 
La Salle, or the Discovery of the Great West (1869); The Old 
Regime in Canada (1874); Count Frontenac and New France 
under Louis XIV (1877); A Half-Century of Conflict (1892); 
Montcalm and Wolfe (1884) ; The Conspiracy of Pontiac. These 
works fill twelve volumes and make a complete and authentic 
record of that critical period of American history centering 
about the French and Indian War. 

As already indicated, these works are based on painstaking 
research. Parkman visited the places he describes and minutely 
examined original documents. In the library of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society are nearly two hundred folio volumes 
of material which expert copyists gathered at home and abroad 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 233 

under the historian's direction; this illustrates Parkman's 
passion for truth. But he knew that more was necessary than 
a study of documents; to make the past really live for the 
reader, he who interprets it should be, so Parkman thought, 
something of a naturahst. He accordingly made himself 
thoroughly acquainted with the setting of his events — the 
natural history of the region as well as the political. The 
result is a picturesqueness and a reahsm so great that he seems 
to have written his books amid the scenes they describe, a 
veritable witness of the happenings. His pages ''fairly reek 
with the fragrance of the pine woods." 

Parkman's style has high Hterary charm. It is simple, 
lucid, plain or colored to harmonize with the theme, rapid or 
slow as the natural movement demands. One is not conscious 
of any unusual merit in it, so perfect a vehicle of the thought is 
it, so borne along is one by the procession of vital forces. There 
is no philosophizing, but there is rapid analysis of cause and 
effect, all in the narrative manner that makes the reader feel 
that he is getting along. The two works best known to the 
general reader and most easily accessible are The Oregon Trail 
and The Conspiracy of Pontiac. These every youth should 
read. They are as full of thrilling adventure, of live Indians 
and fights, of woods and breezy plains, as a Western romance, 
and, what is a good deal better than a mere story, they are 
true and their Enghsh is a joy to the sensitive soul. In Park- 
man is found the rare union of perfect literary grace and 
historical accuracy. 

John Fiske (1842-1901).— John Fiske, the latest of the New 
England historians, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, educated 
at Harvard, studied law, was for several years instructor in 
history and assistant hbrarian at Harvard, and then lecturer 
on history in Washington University, St. Louis, though residing 
in Cambridge. He became interested in philosophy and wrote 
a number of books interpreting to the general reader the 
doctrine of evolution in its philosophical aspects. About 



234 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

1885 he began his writing on historical themes, and between 
1888 and his death in 1901 he pubhshed something hke a 
dozen volumes on the history of the Colonial and Revolutionary 
periods. Among his best-known historical works are A Critical 
Period of American History, The Beginnings of New England, 
and Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Fiske is notable for his 
clear and forceful style and for his ability to interpret history 
and philosophy to the popular mind without loss of substantial 
accuracy. 

The Orators 

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884).— The group of abolitionist 
orators is best represented by its most illustrious member, 
Wendell Phillips, descendant of an old and aristocratic Massa- 
chusetts family. He was educated at Harvard, studied law, 
but virtually gave up that profession to devote his energies to 
the anti-slavery cause, reahzing that his attachment to that 
unpopular movement would mean the ahenation of prospec- 
tive clients. His first famous speech was made in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, in 1837, in which he made a dramatic reply to a state 
official who had just defended the mobbing of an abolitionist 
editor in Illinois. From that time Philhps became an aggres- 
sive spokesman for the reformers. He had great moral and 
physical courage, a commanding presence, a pleasing voice, 
a remarkable memory, and is said to have been able to sway 
his audience at will. His judgment was often at fault, his 
prejudicies were strong, his temper was often bad, but so 
forceful was his personahty, so resistless his eloquence, that his 
hearers would not infrequently assent at the moment to state- 
ments he made, which, after cool reflection, they would utterly 
repudiate. This was true in the case of his Phi Beta Kappa 
address at Harvard in 1881, 'The Scholar in a Republic,'^ — 
the oration which is now usually included in collections of classic 
American speeches — in which he excoriated the listening Cam- 
bridge scholars for their aloofness from poHtics. His speeches 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 



236 



bristle with historical and literary allusions, and it would be an 
evidence of a liberal education in the reader who could without 
special effort correctly locate them. As a lyceum orator 
Philhps was in great demand in the latter part of his life, and 
his oration on 'The Lost Arts" is the most celebrated of his 
lyceum lectures. 



DANIEL WEBSTER (1782-1852) 

His Life. — Daniel Webster, one of the world's great orators, was bom 
at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782, the son of a farmer. 
He was delicate and shy as a child, but showed at an early age remarkable 
mental powers. The neighborhood farmers used to induce the boy to 
read or recite passages from 
the Bible and the poets, for 
they loved to hear his musical 
voice and watch the light in 
his wonderful eyes. At Dart- 
mouth College, where he grad- 
uated in 1801, he was recognized 
by the faculty as unusually 
gifted; he was a voracious 
reader and such an effective 
speaker — though before he went 
to college he had been too 
timid to declaim at school — 
that the citizens of the little 
college town invited him to 
deliver a Fourth-of-July ora- 
tion. He taught for a while 
after leaving college and then 
studied law; he practised first 
at Portsmouth and later re- 
moved to Boston. Meanwhile, 

he was elected to Congress and served two terms. His reputation 
as an orator and lawyer was greatly increased by his winning of the 
celebrated ''Dartmouth College Case" before the Supreme Court at 
Washington in 1818. The simple eloquence of the concluding sentences 
of that speech, uttered with deep feeling, brought tears to the eyes 
of Chief Justice Marshall: "It is, sir, a§ I have said, a small college, 
And yet there are those who love it.'- 




DANIEL WEBSTER 



236 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Webster entered the United States Senate in 1827. The rest of 
his life was given to the public service either as senator or as Secretary 
of State ; the latter office he twice filled. His failure to become President 
was the one great disappointment of his life and embittered his later 
years. The zenith of Webster's career was reached in 1830 when he 
made his famous ''Reply to Hayne" in the Senate. This speech was an 
elaborate defense of the Constitution and a powerful plea for the preserva- 
tion of the union. The last notable speech of Webster was in the Senate 
on March 7, 1850, in which he favored certain compromise measures on 
slavery. This brought on him a tempest of hostile criticism in the 
North, from the effects of which his reputation in that part of the country 
never wholly recovered. His last days were spent at Marshfield, his 
Massachusetts home, where on October 24, 1852, he passed away with 
these words on his lips: "I shall live." He is buried in the little grave- 
yard there. 

His Personality. — Daniel Webster possessed the most im- 
pressive personality in the history of oratory, according to 
contemporary accounts of his appearance and manners. The 
word * 'giant" was often applied to him, and yet he was only 
five feet and ten inches in height and weighed slightly less than 
two hundred pounds. It was, then, not mere size that so 
impressed people, though he was built on a grand scale. It 
was the totality of effect on the beholder — ^the big head, the 
marvelous eyes under the broad and lofty brow, the finely cut 
features full of massive strength, the stately carriage. In the 
streets of Liverpool the Enghsh sailor pointed at him and 
exclaimed, 'There goes a king"; and Sidney Smith cried out 
when he first saw him, ''Good heavens! he is a small cathedral 
by himself." He had a great personal presence. And then 
what a voice! "It was low and musical in conversation, in 
debate it was high but full, ringing out in moments of excite- 
ment like a clarion, and then sinking to deep notes with the 
solemn richness of organ-tones, while the words were accom- 
panied by a manner in which grace and dignity mingled in 
complete accord. . . . There is no man in all history who 
came into the world so equipped physically for speech,"* 

1 Henry Cabot Lodge; Lif^ of DanUl W^h^P^y P- 192 , 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 237 

The very faults of the man seem to have grown out of the 
bigness of his personality. As there was a largeness of manner, 
so there was a lavishness in living and a prodigality in spending. 
He was more or less in debt all his life, and men would lend to 
him as if the act were a favor conferred upon themselves. 
Webster was not over-scrupulous about paying these debts: 
his colossal nature, sensitive to the larger aspects of things, 
was somewhat insensitive to minor moral obligations. Once 
in his boyhood he and his older brother went to a neighboring 
fair, provided with a little money from the slender paternal 
store. When they returned, their mother asked Daniel what 
he did with his money. ''Spent it," he cheerfully replied. 
''And what did you do with yours?" she asked, turning to the 
older brother. "Lent it to Daniel," he promptly answered. 
So it was through life. People extravagantly admired Daniel 
and showered gifts upon him, which he received in the royal 
way — a king taking largess from his loyal subjects. 

His Orations. — The orations of Webster fall into three classes 
— (1) Occasional Speeches, commemorating famous national 
events and the lives of eminent men; (2) Congressional Speeches, 
dehvered in the Senate on political themes; and (3) Jury Ad- 
dresses, or pleas at the bar. Of the first class the most notable 
are the "First Bunker Hill Oration," delivered at the laying 
of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument on June 17, 
1825, and the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson (1826). In the 
"First Bunker Hill Oration," which Webster carefully wrote 
.out, the introduction dwells briefly on the impressiveness of 
the occasion and its patriotic memories; the. main body is a 
discussion of the changes in America and Europe since the 
Revolution, followed by an address to the survivors of the war, 
a tribute to the dead and to La Fayette, remarks on the advance- 
ment of popular government in the world, and the influence of 
America's example; the conclusion inculcates the duty of 
America to preserve what the fathers won and to "cultivate a 
true spirit of union and harmony." The "Second Bunker Hill 



238 AMERICAN. LITERATURE 

Oration" was delivered in 1843, when the monument was com- 
pleted. 

The greatest of the congressional speeches and, all things 
considered, the greatest of all his orations, is the ''Reply to 
Hayne." This, as already stated, was delivered in the United 
States Senate in 1830, as an answer to the * 'state's rights" 
speech of Senator Hayne of South Carolina, in which the 
Southern statesman defended the right of a state to nullify 
the Constitution. The famous concluding words of Webster's 
speech — "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- 
separable," — form the gist of his own political creed. Another 
well-known effort of Webster is the ''Seventh of March Speech" 
(1850), approving Henry Clay's compromise measures on the 
slavery question including the "Fugitive Slave Law," so odious 
to the abolitionists. 

The best of the jury addresses is that dehvered at the trial 
of the murderers of Joseph White in Salem in 1830 and known 
as the "White Murder Case." As an example of Webster's 
strong and solemn diction, the closing paragraph of that speech 
may be quoted. He has argued the case at length and he now 
appeals to the members of the jury to do their duty: 

With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences 
can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot face or fly from but the 
consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. 
It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of 
the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, 
or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If 
we say the darkness shall hide us, in the darkness as in the light our 
obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power nor fly from 
their presence. They are "wdth us in this life, will be with us at its close; 
and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet farther 
onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of 
duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far 
as God may have given us grace to perform it. 

Webster's style is like the man, stately and majestic. In 
early hfe, as with most young orators, he loved the big word, 
but be deliberately set himself the task of simplifying his 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 239 

diction, weeding out the Latin polysyllables wherever he could, 
and so attained a stronger, more vital style. Still, it remained 
the ''grand style,'' modeled after the classic masters whom he 
loved, more orotund and formal than is the fashion to-day. 
The one word which best describes his style, as it does his 
personahty, is massive. 

Aside from the literary value of his orations, one can never 
lose sight of the dominant strain of nationaKsm that runs 
through them. His emphasis on nationality is his greatest 
contribution to American poHtical history. Webster had a 
passion for the larger union of American sentiment, and he 
''stands to-day as the preeminent champion and exponent of 
nationality." 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892) 

His Life. — In the farmhouse at Haverhill, Massachusetts, occupied for 
generations by his ancestors, John Greenleaf Whittier was bom on 
December 17, 1807. He belonged to good, sturdy English Quaker stock. 
As a boy he worked on the farm, but he was not strong physically. 
Indeed, the hard work of these early years told permanently upon his 
health. He attended the district school and then, for two terms, the 
Haverhill Academy. Unlike the other New England poets, Whittier 
did not go to college, nor did he have academic ancestry. At home he 
had access to few books; among these, however, were the Bible, of which 
he was a diligent and devout reader, and the poems of Gray, Cowper, and 
Burns, to say nothing of the lives of eminent Quakers. When he was 
about fourteen the village schoolmaster read some of Burns's poems to 
him, and from that hour he was a lover of the Scotch poet. He wrote 
poetry for the local newspaper, of which William Lloyd Garrison was 
then editor, and thus attracted the attention of that ardent abolitionist. 

After doing a little hackwork on a Boston paper, Whittier returned to 
Haverhill and carried on the farm as well as the editorial work of the 
Haverhill Gazette. In 1830 he became editor of the New England Review 
at Hartford, Connecticut, resigning his position the next year on account 
of continued ill-health. 

About this time he seems to have thought of entering politics, in which 
his newspaper work had caused him to become interested; but in 1833 he 



240 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



decided to give himself unreservedly to the abolition cause, and this 
decision interfered with both his political and his literary ambitions. 
In those years the abolitionists were a small and generally despised 
body of idealists, whom many of their fellow-citizens regarded as oppo- 
nents of law and order. In the agitation which the anti-slavery party 
was carrying on politically and socially Whittier became an active 
worker. He was a dele'gate to the convention in Philadelphia, which in 
1833 founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1835 and the 
following year he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and 
he might have gone to Congress had his health and inclination permitted. 
He preferred, however, to fight his battles outside of the political arena. 
From this time to the beginning of the war he aided the abolitionist 
party in word and deed: he worked for anti-slavery measures in the 
legislature, was instrumental in the nomination of Charles Sumner for 
the Senate, edited several abolitionist papers, and wrote many vigorous 
and impassioned poems against the institution to the overthrow of 
which he had dedicated his energies. 

Meanwhile Whittier had moved to Amesbury, a village not far from 
Haverhill, andthere he wrote much of his best poetry. After his partisan 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 241 

struggle was over, he settled down to the uneventful life of a coimtry 
poet. "Snow-Bound," his best-known long poem, perfectly reflects 
the serenity and quiet joy of his surroundings. The peacefulness of 
his later years is in pleasing contrast to the troubled agitation of his 
earlier life, when, in notable contradiction to Quaker traditions, he 
was penning fiery philippics. He never married, but lived, after his 
mother's death, with his sister Elizabeth, to whom he was tenderly 
devoted; after her death in 1864, he lived with a niece and then with three 
cousins at Danvers. His summers were spent in New Hampshire in 
that wonderfully beautiful region about Lake Winnipesaukee and Lake 
Asquam, which he has celebrated in a number of poems and where the 
memory of him abides among the people. They treasure the old pine 
tree under which he was accustomed to read and write and they have 
ancedotes to tell of the simple, democratic ways of the old Quaker poet. 
He died in 1892, and was buried at Amesbury, Massachusetts. 

His Personality. — The prevailing characteristics of Whittier, 
as one may infer from reading his poetry, are sincerity, 
simplicity, and a strong moral and religious sensibility. He 
was entirely democratic in his manner and feeling, but along 
with his modesty there went the courage born of conviction. 
Among his neighbors he was the kindly, unaffected man, 
interested in the little daily concerns of Hfe, conversing with 
them in their provincial forms of speech — "talking just like 
other folks,'' as one of them remarked. He clung to the ^'thou" 
and "thee" of his Quaker bringing up. To a stranger who 
asked for his autograph, handing him a blank card, the old 
poet said in his direct way: "What dost thee want with it?'* 
Then, after writing his name, he added with a touch of quiet 
humor: "Friend, it will not do thee any good at the bank." 

The intensity of Whittier's moral nature is shown in a piece 
of advice he gave as an old man to a boy of fifteen: "My lad, 
if thou wouldest win success, join thyself to some unpopular 
but noble cause." This is the utterance of an ideahst, whose 
words and acts throughout life sprang from an intense moral 
conviction. His poems on slavery show this; to his Quaker 
instincts any abridgment of human liberty was little short of a 



242 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

crime. Of all the New England poets he had the most im- 
compromising views on individual freedom. 

His Poetry. — Although Whittier wrote much prose — the 
product in the main of his editorial labors — only his poetry 
need be considered here. For the sake of convenience this may 
be roughly divided into (1) Abolition Poems, (2) Descriptive 
Nature Poems, (3) Narrative, or Ballad, Poetry, (4) Personal 
Lyrics, and (5) Religious Verse. This is, of course, not an 
exhaustive classification, for these divisions frequently overlap. 

The poems on abolition belong for the most part to the first 
half of Whittier 's life when he was battling with tongue and 
pen for that cause. In his fight on slavery he repeatedly as- 
serted that his enmity was against the institution and not 
against individuals. After the war he did all he could toward 
the reconciliation of the sections. Replying to the charge that 
he was an enemy of the South, he once wrote: *T was never an 
enemy to the South or the holders of slaves. I inherited from 
my Quaker ancestry a hatred of slavery, but not of slave- 
holders." Of the anti-slavery poems the most noteworthy, 
perhaps, are '^Randolph of Roanoke," in which the Virginia 
statesman is glowingly commended for freeing his slaves; 
^'Massachusetts to Virginia," a spirited protest from the Bay 
State to the Old Dominion; and ''Ichabod," a scathing de- 
nunciation of Daniel Webster for his compromise sentiments 
as voiced in the famous ''Seventh of March" speech (1850). 
With this last poem should be read "The Lost Occasion," in 
which is expressed a juster view of Webster. The anti-slavery 
poems are not particularly interesting to-day and, save for the 
fact that they reveal one side of Whittier's character, may 
quickly be passed over. He would never consent to their 
omission from his works, however; and of all verse written on 
that once absorbing theme, they are undoubtedly the most 
impassioned. 

More essentially poetic and more abiding are the pieces 
dealing with nature in New England. Among these are 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 243 

''Summer by the Lakeside/' 'The Merrimac/' "Hampton 
Beach," "Among the Hills/' and, above all, "Snow-Bound." 
"Snow-Bound" (1866) is one of the greatest, as it is one of the 
most popular, American poems. It depicts the Whittier 
household as the poet knew it in his boyhood. The persons 
introduced include his father, mother, brother, his two sisters, 
his uncle and aunt, besides the village schoolmaster and several 
friends. The homel}^ scene, with its wintertime diversions and 




) 



• 'SNOW-BOUND" 
The Whittier Home in Winter 



labors, is vividly described — the family around the blazing 
hearth, the piled-up snow without, the storm, the story-telling, 
the spinning. This is varied with a character sketch of the 
schoolmaster — suggestive of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" — • 
touches of local and foreign legend, and a tender tribute to the 
memory of his sister Elizabeth in lines almost Wordsworthian: 

I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I see the violet-sprinkled sod 
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 



244 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills 

The air with sweetness; all the hills 

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; 

But still I wait with ear and eye 

For something gone which should be nigh, 

A loss in all familiar things, 

In flower that blooms and bird that sings. 

And yet, dear heart! remembering thee. 

Am I not richer than of old? 
Safe in thy immortality, 

What change can reach the wealth I hold? 

As a writer of ballads Whittier was remarkably successful. 
The most famous of these are '^Skipper Ireson's Ride," 
"Barbara Frietchie," ''Maud Muller,'' and ''Amy Wentworth." 
The story on which "Skipper Ireson's Ride" is based was told 
to Whittier by a schoolmate at Haverhill Academy — ^how 
Captain Ireson, because he abandoned a disabled ship off 
Marblehead, was tarred and feathered and drawn through 
the town in a cart by the indignant women of Marblehead. 
Whether the captain was guilty or not, or whether, indeed, the 
incident ever happened, does not lessen the value of the poem, 
which, for lively dramatic movement, is one of the best things 
the poet ever did. The incident celebrated in "Barbara 
Frietchie" is not historically correct, but the ballad is none the 
less picturesque and spirited. Everybody has read "Maud 
Muller," with its redolent hay-meadows, the casual meeting 
of rustic maiden and urban judge, and the familiar refrain, 
"it might have been." Whittier liked to bring together such 
social extremes as those here presented, democratic leveler 
that he was. This is also done in "Amy Wentworth," in which 
is prettily related the love of the aristocratic maiden for the 
hero of the fishing-smack. In such stanzas as these there is 
felt a Burns-Hke touch : 

The stream is brightest at its spring, 

And blood is not like wine; 
Not honored less than he who heirs 

Js he who founds a line. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 245 

Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair, 

And high and low mate ill; 
But love has never known a law 

Beyond its own sweet will! 

Many of Whittier's finest poems are those which reflect more 
or less directly certain experiences of boyhood and youth. The 
personal element is strong in most of his utterances, for he was 
essentially a lyric poet; but such poems as "Memories," "The 
Barefoot Boy," "My Playmate," and "In School Days," seem 
autobiographical, so much of real fife has been wrought into 
them. They abound, moreover, in local color, and he who 
would know the gentler aspects of rural New England should 
read them. Of "Memories," which delicately tells the story 
of an early love, he once said: "I hardly knew whether to 
pubhsh it, it was so personal and near my heart." "The 
Barefoot Boy" is a perfect picture, which no one could have 
drawn who had not himself been a barefoot country boy. 
"My Pla^Tnate" w^as called by Tennyson "a perfect poem"; 
it is certainly one of the most appealing of personal American 
lyrics, with its undertone of sadness induced by gentle memories 
of boyhood love. "In School Days" has become a favorite 
classic through its early inclusion in school readers: the old 
schoolhouse, the speUing-match, the "turning down" of the 
boy by the golden-haired girl, her subsequent grief because she 
correctly "spelt the word," and her shy confession of love — all 
these pictures warrant Holmes in calling it "the most beautiful 
schoolboy poem in the Enghsh language." Bad spelHng was 
perhaps a more serious offense then than now. To these 
poems should be added "The Huskers" and "The Shoemakers," 
which contain bits of personal experience and pleasing patches 
of New England local color. 

One other group of Whittier's poems should not be forgotten 
— ^the hymns. In spirit the Quaker poet was profoundly 
rehgious. Indeed, hardly any one of his important poems 
fails to carry its lesson of faith in the divine love and purpose. 



246 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

He has contributed to our own literature four or five well- 
known hymns of trust and brotherhood. These are included 
in the series of stanzas entitled ''Our Master"; perhaps the 
most familiar stanza is that beginning — 

We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
To bring the Lord Christ down. 

Out of the poem it would be easy to construct Whittier's 
simple creed; this stanza, for instance, might fairly embody it: 

To do Thy will is more than praise, 

As words are less than deeds, 
And simple trust can find Thy ways 

We miss with chart of creeds. 

Poetic Characteristics and Contribution. — It is well, when- 
ever possible, to quote a poet on his own art, to give his own 
words as to what he is trying to do. To the first collected 
edition of his poems in 1848 Whittier prefixed some stanzas, 
headed 'Troem,'' w^hich modestly set forth his preferences 
and intentions. Several of these will serve to show what 
sort of verse he felt he could best write : 

I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 
The songs of Spenser's golden days, 
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase. 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Yet, vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvelous notes I try. 



The rigor of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

The j arring words of one whose rhyme 
Beats often Labor's hurried time, 
Or Duty's rugged march through storm i^pd strife, are here. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 247 

Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies; 

Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, 
Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
I view her coromon forms with unanointed eyes. 

Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown; 
A hate of tyranny intense. 
And hearty in its vehemence. 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

One who sympathetically reads Whittier will find this a 
true statement of his method and matter. His personal 
characteristics, already mentioned, are simplicity, sincerity, 
and moral earnestness. His contribution to American litera- 
ture may be sunmied up as follows: (1) He is the truest poet 
of New England country life — ^its setting and its customs; 
(2) he is notable for his abihty to write simple and direct 
narrative of local legend and homely incident, in which may be 
found the heroic of the commonplace; (3) he is one of our best 
ballad writers; (4) he is our principal religious poet. 

The limitations of Whittier's verse are evident enough: 
there is a lack of variety in form, which, on a continuous read- 
ing, results in monotony. He was fond of the simple four-beat 
measure and did not care to experiment with complicated 
meters. Not having a keen musical ear, he often made bad 
rhymes — a defect, by the way, in far greater poets than he. 
These and other limitations separate him from his more academic 
fellow poets, frequently, indeed, to his own advantage; for 
naturalness in art is as great a virtue as finished technique, and 
Whittier looked into his heart and round about him and wrote. 
To college training and foreign travel he owed nothing; he was 
provincial in a good sense. His love of man and nature gave 
warmth to his song, in which ''our common world of joy and 
woe" is the central theme. 



248 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



The New England ^Titers already considered have long 
been classics. There has since risen into prominence no group 
so clearly defined as these, either in New England or in any 
other part of the country. In concluding this discussion of the 
New England classic group, mention must be made of a niunber 
of minor authors whose lives and works are inseparably con- 
nected with that section. More extended notice, however, is 
due one later writer at least, whose name, despite the fact that 
he spent his early years of authorship in New York and won his 
spurs there, is in the pubUc mind rightly coimected with 
Boston — Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907).— Thomas Bailey Aldrich 

was born in Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, where he spent his 
boyhood, his experiences being 
recorded in his own Story of a 
Bad Boy. For financial reasons 
he did not have the opportunity 
of a college education, but went 
when he was sixteen or seventeen 
to New York, where for several 
years he was a clerk in his 
uncle's business house. He was 
more interested in literature, 
however, than in ledgers, and at 
nineteen brought out a volume 
of poems. He next turned to 
editorial work on New York 
magazines, joined the literary group made up of WilUs, Taylor, 
Stoddard, and others, and as far as his New England conscience 
would permit, became a Bohemian. By 1870 he was in Boston 
editing a literary periodical called Every Saturday. Between 
1881 and 1890 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, The rest 
of his life was spent in or near Boston. 




THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 249 

Aldrich is well known as a writer of short stories and poems; 
he is also the author of three novels, Prudence Palfrey, The 
Queen of Sheba, and The Stillwater Tragedy, but they do not 
represent him at his best. The most interesting of his long 
narratives is The Story of a Bad Boy, a thinly veiled piece of 
autobiography; Rivermouth is Portsmouth and Tom Bailey is 
Tom Aldrich. It is one of the best boys' stories in literature, 
full of sympathy and insight, and delightful reading to those 
who still remember the days of their youth. The volume of 
short stories that made Aldrich's reputation was published in 
1873 as Marjorie Daw and Other Stories. Marjorie Daw is a 
charming hoax story, wrought out with clever artistry, which 
may be read with interest more than once. Aldrich is one of 
the most finished of our short-story writers. He has also 
written many delicate sketches of travel as well as essays on 
men and manners, included in his Ponkapog Papers. 

The poetry of Aldrich, which appeared in successive editions 
from 1855 to the year before his death, includes several long 
narrative productions, such as Wyndham Towers and Judith 
and Holof ernes, and the tragedy, Mercedes; but his shorter 
poems are undoubtedly his best. He achieved distinction as a 
writer of sonnets, while his society verse and his nature and 
personal lyrics show a deftness of touch and a perfection of 
form rarely equaled in our fighter poetry. ''Baby Bell" is a 
dainty poem, universally known; ''Spring in New England" 
is one of his finest nature poems. He was happy in the naming 
of his collections of verse — "Interludes," "Cloth of Gold," 
"Bagatelles." Aldrich has been called "the American Her- 
rick," because of his graceful lyric sensibility. As short - 
story wTiter and as poet he shows the delicate sense for form 
and expression that marks the true artist. 

Other New England Writers. — Richard Henry Dana Jr., 
(1815-1882) a native of Cambridge, Mass., was a writer on 
international law and a contributor to magazines. His one 
noted book is Two Years Before the Mast (1840), a narrative 



250 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of his cruise to California for his health, and one of the best 
boys' books in literature. James T. Fields (1817-1881) was 
for more than thirty years a leading publisher of Boston. He 
was for a while editor of the Atlantic Monthly. As a wide 
reader and book-collector and a friend of authors, he was 
acquainted with many of the famous men of letters of his time 
in England and America, and has left in his Yesterdays with 
Authors (1872) valuable impressions of Thackeray, Dickens, 
Hawthorne, Wordsworth, and others. Edward Everett Hale 
(1722-1909), of Boston, is the author of a patriotic story, writ- 
ten with fine literary art, The Man without a Country (18CC), 
so realistic that it has been taken as a record of facts. In his 
ability to make fiction seem truth Dr. Hale resembles Defce. 
John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916) wrote successful 
boys' stories, of which Cudjo^s Cave is perhaps the best known; 
My Own Story is a valuable book of reminiscences. Samuel F. 
Smith (1808-1895), a Baptist minister living near Boston, is 
author of the national hymn, ''My Country, 'tis of thee," 
besides other less widely known hymns. He was a member 
of Holmes' ''famous class of '29" at Harvard. Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911) was a frequent contributor to 
magazines and author of Gates Ajar, at one time very popular. 
Louise Chandler Moulton (1835-1908) wrote many volumes of 
fiction, poems, and essays. Some Women's Hearts is one of her 
novels. Celia Thaxter (1836-1894) wrote fine nature-descrip- 
tions in her Isles of Shoals, inspired by her surroundings on 
those islands, where her father was lighthouse-keeper. Emily 
Dickinson (1830-1886) left three little volumes of deUcate poems 
which rank with the best minor American verse of sentiment. 
Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888) was the daughter of A. Bronson 
Alcott, the Concord transcendentalist. Her varied experiences 
in life furnished material for her stories, the best of which are 
found in the series for young people, Little Women (1868). 
These are pictures of New England life as she had known it as a 
girl. 



NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 251 

Later Writers. — Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909 )belonged to 
an old New England family of culture. She was born at 
South Berwick, Maine, the daughter of a jjhysician. She 
wrote her first sketches of the life about her for the Atlantic 
Monthly. Her best novels are Deephaven and The Country of 
the Pointed Firs. In addition to these, she wrote many short 
stories. She is an admirable portrayer of simple village life; 
a quiet humor and the breath of the woods are in her books. 

Mary Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) has come to be re- 
garded as the most eminent of the later New England story- 
writers. She is a native of Randolph, Massachusetts, and writes 
with a sure hand and with intense realism of the country folk 
of her region — farmers, spinsters, school-teachers, clergymen. 
In very vivid fashion she has depicted the humble romance of 
provincial life. She thoroughly knows the people of whom 
she writes and the setting of their limited lives; these she treats 
with a humor bordering on quiet satire, and yet not without 
sympathy. It is likely that such works as A Humble Romance, 
A New England Nun, and Pembroke, will hold a high place in 
our permanent literature of fiction. 

Winston Churchill (1871- ) was born in St. Louis, but 

has spent many years in the East. His home is at Cornish, 
New Hampshire. His principal works are Richard Carvel, The 
Crisis, The Crossing, The Inside of the Cup, Coniston, A Far 
Country, The Dwelling Place of Light (1917). The first three 
are historical novels, dealing in a striking manner with critical 
periods in national development; the next is an indictment of 
the church for its conservative indifference to modern con- 
ditions. The last three are concerned with corrupt politics, 
business, and industrial and social evils. Churchill's books 
are strong, thoughtful contributions to later American literature. 

Other later writers are Arthur Sherburne Hardy (1847- 

)who is the author of several strong and charming novels; 

Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835 ), novehst and poet, 

who wrote Amber Gods and other romantic and richly colored 



252 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

stories; and Alice Brown (1857 ), of New Hampshire, 

who is to be classed with Mrs. Freeman in her abiHty to depict 
New England country life. Alice Brown's short stories are 
brighter and warmer than Mrs. Freeman's. These two writers 
are the greatest contemporary portray ers of provincial local 

color in New England. Bliss Carman (1861 ), a 

native of New Brunswick and now a resident of Connecticut, 
has written many volumes of verse — songs, ballads, odes. 
His best-known collection is the series called The Pipes of Pan, 
lyrics of delicate quality in which the nature note predomi- 
inates. He collaborated with his friend Richard Hovey in 
Songs from Vagahondia. Josephine Preston Peabody Marks 

(1874 ), of Massachusetts, has written excellent lyric and 

dramatic verse; two plays, Marlowe and The Piper (the Strat- 
ford-on-Avon prize drama), have been successfully acted. 

Bliss Perry (1860 ), professor of English literature at 

Harvard and formerly editor of the Atlantic Monthly, is author 
of a number of delightful essays and of excellent biographies 

of Whitman and Whittier. Margaret Sherwood (1864^ ), 

of Massachusetts, professor of English in Wellesley College, 
has written much verse of fine quality as w^ell as a number of 
charming sketches and short stories. Katherine Lee Bates 

(1859 ), also professor of English at Wellesley, is the 

author of poems (one of the best known being ''America the 
Beautiful") and stories, and editor of a large number of 

classics. William Lyon Phelps (1865- ), professor of 

English literature at Yale, has written a number of volumes 
of delightful essays on literary subjects. 



THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 253 

THE CHAPTER IN OUTLINE 

I. The Concord Group 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) : Essays, Poems. Transcendentalist 
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) : Walden. Philosopher-naturalist 
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864): Short Stories and Sketches, Long 
Romances. Contributed the romance of Puritanism 

II. The Cambridge Group 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882): Lyrics and Ballads; Long 
Narrative Poems — Evangeline, Hiawatha, Courtship of Miles Standish. 
Translator of Dante; Prose Romances 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Poems — Fable for Critics, Vision of 
Sir Laimfal, Biglow Papers, Present Crisis; Critical Essays. Eminent 
literary critic, poet of great occasions 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894): Poems; the "Breakfast Table" 
series (Prose): Novels. Boston poet of social instinct 

III. The Historians ant) the Orators 

1. Historians 

George Bancroft: History of the United States 

William H. Prescott: Conquest of Mexico, Conquest of Peru, etc. 

John Lothrop Motley: Dutch Republic, Netherlands. 

Francis Parkman (1823-1895) : Oregon Trail, Conspiracy of Pontiac, etc. 

John Fiske : Beginnings of New England, Old Virginia and her Neighbors 

2. Orators 

Wendell Phillips: Abolition speeches; The Scholar in a Republic 
Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Bunker Hill Orations, Reply to Hayne 



John Greenleaf WTiittier (1807-1892) : Lyrics and Ballads; Nature Poems 
-Snow-Bound; Hymns. Poet of New England Country Life 
Thomas Bailey Aldric-i: Poems; Prose Stories — Marjorie Daw, etc. 



Three movements in "New Englard Awakening" (about 1840): Uni- 
tarianism, Transcendentalism, and Abolitionism, — religious, intellectual, 
and social liberalism. Each was a form of Idealism. Moral element 
strong in New Engknd literature. 



254 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

SOME USEFUL BOOKS 

Historical and Social. — Any of the general histories mentioned at the 
beginning of this book; Rhodes's History of the United States (1850- 
1877); Lowell's Cambridge Thirty Years Ago (Literary Essays, vol. I); 
Higginson's Old Cambridge (Macmillan) ; Frothingham's Transcendental- 
ism in New England (Putnam); Emerson's New England Reformers 
(Essays, second series); Lindsay Swift's Brook Farm (Macmillan). 

Literary. — Any of the general histories of American literature already 
mentioned; Lawton's The New England Poets (Macmillan); Sted- 
man's Poets of America; Burton's Literary Leaders of America (Scrib- 
ner); Vincent's American Literary Masters; Erskine's Leading Amer- 
ican Novelists (Holt); Howells's Literary Friends and Acquaintance; 
Brownell's American Prose Masters; Vedder's American Writers of 
To-Day; Stoddard's American Poets and their Homes. 

Emerson. — Life by Holmes, Woodberry, Garnett, Sanborn, Cabot; 
E. W. Emerson's Emerson in Concord; Woodberry's Talks with Ralph 
Waldo Emerson; Matthew Arnold's Lecture on Emerson (in Dis- 
courses in America). 

Thoreau. — Life by Sanborn; Channing's Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist; 
Marble's Thoreau, his Home, Friends, and Books; Burroughs's Indoor 
Studies (Chap. I). 

Hawthorne. — Life by Woodberry, James, Conway, Fields; Julian 
Hawthorne's Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife; Julian Hawthorne's 
Hawthorne and his Circle; Bridge's Personal Recollections of Hawthorne; 
Lathrop's A Study of Hawthorne; Gates's Studies and Appreciations. 

Longfellow. — Life by Samuel Longfellow, Higginson, Carpenter, 
Robertson. 

Lowell. — Life by Greenslet, Hale, Scudder; Hale's James Russell 
Lowell and his Friends; Letters, edited by Charles Eliot Norton. 

Holmes. — Life by Morse; Haweis's American Humourists; Smalley's 
Studies of Men. 

Whittier. — Life by Perry, Carpenter, Higginson, Pickard; Pickard's 
Whittier-Land, 

Parkman. — Life by Sedgwick, Farnham. 

Webster. — Life by Lodge, Curtis, Hapgood. 

Selections from New England writers may be found in Stedman and 
Hutchinson's Library of American Literature, Page's Chief American 
Poets, Bronson's American Poems, Carpenter's American Prose. An- 
notated editions of separate works are to be found in the ''Riverside 
Literature Series" of Houghton Mifflin Co., and in collections by other 
educational publishers. 



CHAPTER FIVE 
THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 

Old Southern Life. — The ideals of the older South were social 
and political, and the cultured class was aristocratic. The 
plantation, with the great manor house and adjacent negro 
quarters, was the social unit of the state. Life was leisurely 
and, under the best conditions, rich in social graces. The 
chief occupation was agriculture, which, with slave labor, was 
highly profitable. The vast plantations, the poor roads, and 
the grouping of many people about the ''mansion," prevented 
the rapid rise of towns and cities, as in the Northern states. 
This isolation meant the growth of a strong individualism. As 
there were few thickly populated centers, there was little 
cooperative effort making for unity of thought and action. 
A few prominent families virtually formed the neighborhood, 
intermarrying and thus preserving the old traditions. The 
conmiunity tended to become rigidly conservative. Such a 
movement, for instance, as the transcendental impulse, which 
changed the current of New England thought, was scarcely 
felt in the South. 

Secure in his somewhat feudal state, the lord of the manor 
felt a commendable pride in his ancestry and had a firm belief 
in the stabiUty of inherited social and pohtical traditions. He 
stood for the divine right of the individual. This old Southern 
gentleman, around whom the novelists have thrown a glamour 
of romance, was withal a worthy descendant of the Cavaliers — 
kindly, brave, and chivalrous. He still fingers in the imagina- 
tion as one of the picturesque figures of our civilization; and if, 
perchance, here and there he outlived the passing of the old 
order, there was about him an antique atmosphere, which, to 
the newer generation, was not without a suggestion of pathos. 

[2551 



256 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

He seemed a survival and a reminiscence of a day that was 
dead. 

This was the aristocratic side of old Southern life, on which 
the writers of poetry and romance have loved to dwell. But 
this was not all of it. There was a sturdy middle class, large 
and influential, that carried on the industry of the South — 
the merchants, the professional and business men, the small 
farmers. These men formed the backbone and the sinews of 
old Southern life, even as they continue to do in their descend- 
ants. They made life democratic in the best sense. Indeed, 
strictly speaking, there was no rigid aristocracy in the old 
South; there was, of course, class feeling and there was a 
certain amount of exclusiveness, but in a new country class 
distinctions were variable quantities, and democratic simplicity 
and democratic sympathy existed among the best families of 
every community. The so-called middle class and the aristo- 
cratic class are so blended that it is impossible to find any 
clear-cut line of distinction between them. Below these were 
the ''poor whites,'' illiterate descendants of inferior immigrants; 
then came the negro slaves. This was the composite society 
of the older South, but, save for the negro, it was, except for 
settlements of German and Romance peoples here and there, 
essentially Anglo-Saxon and has remained so. 

Attitude toward Literature. — Conditions in the older South 
were not favorable to the production of literature. In the 
first place, the climate was not stimulating to creative effort; 
second, slave labor and agriculture tended to develop a leisure 
class averse to literary drudgery; third, the lack of thickly 
populated centers — towns and cities — meant the absence of 
incentives to the writing of books, for literature flourishes best 
in such strongholds of intelligence; fourth, there were no great 
pubhc libraries in the South, no great pubhshing houses, and 
no well-supported magazines, all of which are essential to 
hterary productiveness; and fifth, there was no good system of 
public education, whereby the masses of the people h^d 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 257 

opportunities for training. Of all these drawbacks to the 
making of literature, the third, fourth, and fifth are particularly 
noteworthy. The conditions implied in the second reason for 
the dearth of literature require special consideration. 

The idealism of the older South showed itself in political 
debate, in ornate oratory, and in the enjoyment of the un- 
written poetry of plantation life. For many years before the 
war of 1861-'65 the Southern statesmen exerted a powerful 
influence in the making and directing of national poHcies. A 
Southern group of political leaders virtually controlled the 
government. The orators of the old South have not been 
excelled in our national history. They were clever debaters 
on the science and art of statecraft. They diligently studied 
public questions, they had read the classic orators, and they 
constructed their speeches after the best models of that ancient 
art. In these old Southern statesmen the finest traditions of 
the school of Burke and Pitt and Fox still lived. Thus the 
energy of the most gifted men was spent on political discus- 
sion; the old-time Southerner was a politician by instinct and 
training, and his ambition was pohtical. To him the spoken 
word was more than the written word. Consequently he 
sought preferment at the bar, on the bench, in the forum, 
and not in the world of letters. 

Moreover, the typical Southerner, reared amidst somewhat 
aristocratic social conditions, looked upon literature as a 
polite accomplishment, a means of entertainment, and not as a 
livelihood. He might compose poetry as an elegant diversion, 
but not seriously as a vocation, certainly not for pay. One of 
the sweetest minor poets of the South, Richard Henry Wilde, 
wrote anonymously and would not acknowledge his verses 
until many years after they were written. Philip Pendleton 
Cooke, another singer of merit, was advised by his friends to 
give himself to things more worth while than poetry, — such, 
for instance, as settling neighborhood disputes! There were, 
to be sure, some excellent writers in the ante-bellum South, 



258 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

but they had many struggles, as we shall see, and they were 
lonely. The cultivated public did not encourage literature as 
a profession. 

It must not be thought, however, that the educated people 
of the old South did not care for literature. Quite the con- 
trary is true: they were great readers. Prosperous country 
gentlemen had their private hbraries, in which were to be 
found the best classic authors, particularly the English writers 
of the eighteenth century, and among those of the early nine- 
teenth, certainly Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Members 
of two famous New York publishing houses have declared^ 
that their firms shipped more books to the South before the 
war than to any other part of the country. Lovers of literature, 
especially of the older English novelists and poets. Southern 
people of culture read widely; but their conservatism, their 
semi-feudal form of society based on slave labor, and their 
isolation from great centers, naturally tended to discourage 
newer movements of thought and the making of books. It is 
surprising, indeed, that so much was accomplished in literature 
and of such high quality, under circumstances passively, 
though not active^, adverse. We can account for it only on 
the groimd that the Southerner has always been an incurable 
idealist. This radiant ideaHsm shines throughout Southern 
literature. 

The Newer South. — The great war from 1861 to 1865 swept 
away the old order, and out of the ruins of her ancient com- 
monwealths the South set to work to rebuild her civihzation. 
Slavery was dead, and there was need accordingly of a new 
racial, industrial, and political adjustment. It proved a 
painful process, but it revealed an unsuspected resourcefulness 
and an energy little short of marvelous. The splendid heroism 
of it all has been the wonder and the admiration of every 
thoughtful student of modern American development. The 

1 J. H. Harper: The House of Harper. 
George H. Putnam: George Palmer Putman. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 250 

courageous rise out of the dust and ashes of defeat has equaled 
the military heroism of her leaders in the great struggle which 
resulted in the loss of the South 's ancient prestige in the nation. 

Since the terrible days of reconstruction, when chaos seemed 
to reign and financial ruin waited at the gates, the South has 
been waxing fat in her industrial prosperity; and with this 
prosperity has come a new outburst of literary energy. The 
old symbols of her glory — the bar, the bench, the forum, the 
manor-house — have been succeeded by the newer symbols of 
power — the factory, the furnace, and the schoolhouse. Along 
T\dth these, one may prophesy, in the light of the lesson of 
history, a still greater literary awakening. Vast storehouses 
of material for poem and story await the transforming hand of 
genius. Since the w^ar this material has been steadily drawn 
upon for the creation of a fresh and varied literature; more 
recent writers are using it in fiction with singular effectiveness. 

General Divisions of Southern Literature. — Much of the 
older literature of the South, as we have already seen, con- 
sisted of political essays, biographies and histories, and orations. 
Along with these we find a number of romances and sketches 
of colonial life, miscellaneous lyrics in the manner of the English 
Cavaher poets, plantation melodies, and scattered patriotic 
songs and satires. The authors of these were not professional 
literary men, but chiefly lawyers and statesmen, whose, writing 
of poetry and fiction was merely incidental. 

What may be called ''Standard Southern Literature" had its 
rise in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It will 
make for clearness to treat the subject under the three heads of 
Poetry, Oratory, and Prose Fiction. Following the dis- 
cussion of the principal authors, the most prominent minor 
writers may be briefly considered. Then the hving writers, 
whose places are not yet definitely fixed, may be noticed. In so 
short a history as this, many names must needs be omitted or 
merely glanced at. The great name in Southern literature 
is of course Edgar Allan Poe; so versatile and lofty a genius 



260 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

cannot be accurately classified, but as he was primarily a poet, 
he may be considered under that heading. 

POETRY 

Southern poetry is essentially lyric. It consists chiefly of 
''short swallow-flights of song." There are few long, sus- 
tained narrative poems; Southern poets have written little 
epic verse, and they have attempted few dramatic pieces. 
The qualities most conspicuous are beauty, melody, and 
exquisite rhythm. The local- coloring is noteworthy in the 
poets of the lower South; the interpretation of nature's moods 
and outward aspects is done with delicate artistic sensibility. 
The musical element is strong. 

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 

No singer of old story 

Luting accustomed lays, 
No harper for new glory, 

No mendicant for praise, 
He struck high chords and splendid, 
Wherein were fiercely blended 
Tones that unfinished ended 

With his unfinished days. 

— John Henry Boner 

His Life. — Edgar Allan Poe, poet, short-story writer, and critic, was 
born in Boston, January 19, 1809, the son of David Poe and Elizabeth 
Arnold Poe, actor and actress. His parents were playing in Boston at 
the time of his birth. His father belonged to a prominent Maryland 
family and was the son of a Revolutionary officer of the same name; his 
mother was English, and, at the time of her marriage to David Poe, 
a young widow in the troupe which he had joined several years before at 
Charleston, South Carolina. Before Edgar was three years old, he was 
left an orphan in Richmond. A prosperous tobacco merchant of that 
city, Mr. John Allan, took the child into his home, and Mrs. Allan 
became a mother to him. From this family Poe received his middle 
name. The Allans went to England in 1815 and remained abroad five 
years. Edgar attended during this time a school at Stoke-Newington, 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



261 



a suburb of London, where he was regarded as a rather reserved boy 
and a good student. His foster-parents returned to Richmond in 1820, 
and in their home the boy spent the next six years. He became noted 
as a swimmer, a declaimer, and in general as a youth of unusual ability. 
He had excellent training under private tutors and by his seventeenth 
year was ready for college. 

In February, 1826, Poe entered the University of Virginia. Here 
he made a fine record in languages, but through his fondness for gambling 
he contracted debts which his foster-father refused to pay. There was 
no official censure of Poe by the University; it was Mr. Allan who with- 
drew him and put him to work in his business ofiice. Poe had remained 




ROTUNDA AND LAWN 

University of Virginia 



in college a year, demonstrating his great intellectual capacity, as well 
as his proneness to dissipation. The little room on the "West Range," 
which he occupied as a student, is now marked by a tablet bearing the 
inscription under his name, Domus Parva Magni Poetae (''The Little 
Dwelling-place of a Great Poet"); -and in the University library is the 
fine bronze bust of the poet by Zolnay. ^ 

Poe did not long remain in Mr. Allan's counting-house; that same 
year (1827) he ran away to Boston and soon thereafter enlisted in the 
army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. That summer he published 
in Boston his first little volume of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems. 
The latter part of the year he was sent to Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, 
South Carolina, and several months later to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. 
So satisfactory was Poe's service that about this time he was made a 
sergeant-major. Somehow his whereabouts became loiown to Mr. 
Allan, perhaps through the young soldier's o-«ti efforts, and a furlough 
was obtained in order that he might once again see Mrs. Allan, who was 

1 See Frontispiece. 



262 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



very ill. It was too late, however; with Mrs. Allan's death he lost his 
one sympathetic friend. The next year (1829) Mr. Allan helped to 
provide a substitute in the army and arranged for him to enter West 
Point. 

Poe entered West Point on July 1, 1830. In such studies as he specially 
liked he did well. The monotonous routine of military duties be dis- 
liked, and accordingly neglected them with more or less regularity. 
All the time, however, he was a great reader. But reading and fits of 
dissipation do not make the soldier; and in 1831, because of neglect of 




LITERARY MESSENGER BUILDING 
Richmond, Va. 



duties for two successive weeks, he was court-martialed and dismissed. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Allan had married again, and any expectations which 
Poe might have entertained of inheriting his fortune were now in vain. 
He was thus alone and adrift in the world. To New York City he went, 
determined to rely on literature. There in 1831 appeared a volume of 
Poemsy issued on faith in the subscriptions of his fellow-cadets at West 
Point, among whom his literary ability had become well known. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 263 

The rest of Poe's troubled life was given to literature, either as editor 
or author. From New York he went to Richmond, but found Mr. Allan 
obdurate; the break between them was complete. Then he proceeded 
to Baltimore, where he became a member of the household of his aunt, 
Mrs. Clemm. In 1833 he won a prize of one hundred dollars for his 
story, MS. Found in a Bottle, offered by a Baltimore paper. In 1835, 
through the influence of John P. Kennedy, he obtained an editorial 
position on the Southern Literary Messenger, of Richmond. By his 
original stories and his vigorous and penetrating, though sometimes 
hasty and unjust, criticism, he rapidly won wide distinction and in- 
creased the circulation of the magazine from seven or eight hundred to 
five thousand. His reputation was made, and fortune seemed to smile 
upon him. In 1836 he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a girl of 
fourteen — a fragile embodiment of his shadowy dreams of feminine 
beauty. But his fondness for drink again blighted his career : he lost his 
editorial position on the Messenger, and in 1837 returned to New York, 
where he remained about a year without finding permanent work. 

To Philadelphia Poe went in 1838. Here he hoped to establish a 
magazine; meanwhile, he wrote many stories for two periodicals of that 
literary center, the Gentleman^s Magazine and Graham's Magazine, on 
both of which he held positions for brief periods. Here, too, he published 
a collection of stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. After six 
years of mingled success and failure in Philadelphia, he removed to 
New York. 

The remaining years of Poe's active literary life were spent in New 
York. In the metropolis he was befriended by N. P. Willis, editor 
and poet, in whose paper, the Evening Mirror, appeared in 1845 ''The 
Raven." Poe was now at the height of his fame. About this time he 
secured control of the Broadway Journal, and it seemed at last that his 
dream about establishing a magazine of his own had come true. Poor 
management and ill-advised criticism of contemporaries, however, 
soon put an end to that promising enterprise. An accumulation of 
debts wrecked the magazine and brought its editor to the verge of 
destitution. In the tiny cottage at Fordham, just out of New York, 
where Poe lived with his guardian angel, Mrs. Clemm, and his dying 
wife, poverty also dwelt. In 1847 Virginia Poe died, and for many 
months thereafter the poet was ill and despondeht. Through the 
tender care of Mrs. Clemm he was gradually restored to health and 
fitness for his work. 

During the next two years some of Poe's best work was done. He 
wrote "Ulalume," "The Bells," and ''Annabel Lee," gave public lectures 
and readings to sympathetic audiences, and projected plans for a new 



264 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

magazine. His last visit to Richmond was in September, 1849, where 
he was cordially received by his old friends. Here he met Mrs. Shelton, 
an old sweetheart, became engaged to her, and after a short stay in the 
city of his boyhood, began the return journey northward to arrange for 
the wedding. In Baltimore on October 3, he was found unconscious near 
a room in use as a voting-place and taken to a hospital. There, without 
regaining consciousness, he died on October 7, 1849, and was buried in 
Westminster churchyard. 

His Personality. — According to those who knew him well, 
Poe was a man of striking appearance. "He had a broad 
forehead, a large, magnificent eye, dark brown and rather 
curly hair; well formed, about five feet seven in height. He 
dressed neatly in his palmy days — wore Byron collars and a 
dark neckerchief, looking the poet all over. The expression 
of his face was thoughtful, melancholy, and rather stern." ^ 
Bishop Fitzgerald, who saw the poet one day in Richmond in 
1849, speaks of his features as ''sad, yet finely cut, shapely 
head, and eyes that were strangely magnetic, as you looked 
into them." 

A man of highly 'sensitive nature, keen intellect, refined and 
elegant manners, and fascinating personality, touched with 
pride, morbidness, and vanity, impelled by whim and impulse 
and a desire for some unattainable ideal of beauty: such was 
Poe, as we see him through his letters and his Hterary produc- 
tions. Nobody really understood him; even while associating 
with men and women, he was in a sense remote from them. 
Women doubtless understood him better than men; feminine 
companionship and sympathy were essential to him. Though 
he was intemperate, his refinement and fastidiousness saved 
him from sensuality. The moral purity of his prose and 
poetry seems to reflect his own thinking and his domestic re- 
lationships. He loved solitude too deeply to make many 
friends; he was a lonely, restless mortal, ever seeking and 
never finding happiness and peace. 



^ J. H. Hewett, editor of Baltimore Saturday Visitor. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



265 



*'My life has been whim, impulse, passion, — a longing for 
soHtude, a scorn of all things present in an earnest desire for the 
future": this is Poe's description of himself. In spite of his 
weaknesses, he was a hard worker. No man could have left 
such a mass of enduring literature without great industry. His 
love for drink was partly inherited, partly the result of circum- 
stances, but he was no habitual drinker; indeed, for long periods 
he seems to have been quite abstemious. His devotion to his 
child-wife and his mother-in-law was beautiful. Some of his 




POE'S COTTAGE 

Fordham, New York 



letters to Mrs. Clemm reveal a childlike dependence upon that 
good woman. His sohcitude for the frail Virginia in those 
poverty-stricken days at the Fordham cottage is touching. 
All in all, the man Poe, battling with demons and dreaming 
ineffable dreams of angels, is the most pathetically tragic 
figure in our literature. 

His Poetry. — A slender volume of verses is Poe's contribution 
to poetry. The earliest of these verses were published in 
Boston in 1827, when Poe was under twenty years of age; in 
1829 a revised edition, with important additions, appeared; 



266 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

two years later a collection of his poems was published by the 
author. After this, his poetry was first printed in periodicals 
with which he was connected. The longest of the earlier 
poems underwent numerous revisions, especially ^'The Sleeper/' 
which was a favorite with Poe. Of these earlier poems, 
^TsrafeP' and "To Helen'' have proved most popular, as most 
truly expressive of Poe's lyric genius. To these should be 
added the exquisite stanzas from "Al Araaf," beginning — • 

Ligeia! Ligeia! 
My beautiful one ! 

In these youthful verses there are reminiscences of the manner 
of Coleridge and of Shelley, who were in a sense Poe's poetic 
masters. 

The most characteristic of the later poems are ''The Haunted 
Palace" (found in the prose tale, ''The House of Usher"), 
"The Raven" (1845), "Ulalume" (1847), "The Bells" (1849), 
"For Annie" (1849), and "Annabel Lee" (1849). The later 
poems show the wonderful mastery of his art which Poe finally 
reached through careful workmanship. He professedly wrought 
out his verses according to a well-defined and elaborated 
theory of poetic composition, the aim of which, he asserts, 
was to produce unusual effects by certain repetitions and the 
use of onomatopoetic words, — that is, words with sounds 
echoing the sense. Without his gift of high poetic inspira- 
tion, of course, success could not have been attained, no matter 
how fine the theory; it is to be remembered, however, that 
Poe, true artist that he was, diligently worked on his poems. 

The range of Poe's poetry is quite Hmited. His favorite 
subject is the death of a beautiful woman. This he conceived 
to be the most poetic, as it is the saddest, in the realm of 
romantic art. His ideal was fragile beauty bhghted by untimely 
death. The sadness growing out of the contemplation of this 
is a somewhat pleasureable melancholy without the disturbing 
consequences of genuine tragedy. Thus, Poe limited himself 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 267 

to lyric effects, and a lyric poem at its best is brief. Wishing to 
produce one emotional effect and only one, he consistently 
followed his theory that ''totality of effect or impression' ' 
cannot be obtained in a long poem. Accordingly his poems are 
short lyric compositions, each on a single emotional idea, in 
which rhythmic language is employed to express the highest 
beauty. To him, as to Keats, pure beauty was the end and 
aim of poetic endeavor. 

The substance of a poem often seems very slight; sound is 
more than sense. And yet Poe is not simply ''the jingle man"; 
many of his poems have some one well-defined thought, as a 
prose paraphrase will show. Of course the thought, stripped of 
its poetic imagery and its musical tones, may appear com- 
paratively commonplace, but that is true of most lyric poetry. 
With the exception of "The Bells," which was deliberately 
intended to be mainly sound, you will find, on a thoughtful 
reading, that most of the other poems have more substance 
than you supposed. In some of them, indeed, there is an 
allegorical significance, a symbolism, which is not without an 
ethical value. "Eldorado," for instance, might be put with 
Longfellow's "Excelsior" for its uplifting idealism. Doubtless 
in reading Poe's poetry we are too much inclined to apply it 
directly to the poet's own sad and broken life. It should be 
judged at its face value. 

The most famous poem of Poe is, of course, "The Raven," 
which is assumed to be more or less expressive of the poet's 
personal feehngs. Written in 1845, it had an immediate and 
widespread popularity, which has not waned. It would be 
difficult to find another American poem which is more famihar 
at home and abroad. Poe carefully explained how he wrought 
it out, but his "ratiocination" fails to account for the wonderful 
effects produced. The poem is mentally suggestive, it is true, 
but the pictures and the haunting sounds — particularly the 
recurring "Nevermore" — are even more compelling and un- 
forgetable than the thought. Such mastery of vocal effects, 



268 AMERICAN LITERATUKE 

such musical acrobatics, we cannot find elsewhere in our 
poetry. More sadly melodious are "Annabel Lee" and 
''Ulalume/' both written in memorj^ of his own lost Virginia. 
In these IjTics perfection of form and melody is happily 
achieved; the union of music and articulate speech is com- 
plete. 

His Short Stories. — Poe wrote over sixty short stories, or 
''tales,'' as he called them. Although he won in 1833 a prize 
with his "MS. Found in a Bottle," the first of his short stories 
proper was ''Berenice," which appeared in the Southern Literary 
Messenger for March, 1835. Others followed in rapid succes- 
sion, some hurriedly written and of little merit, but most of tnem 
real artistic creations. Among the most famous are "The Fall 
of the House of Usher," "Shadow," "The Gold Bug," "The 
Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter," "The 
Pit and the Pendulum," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," "The 
Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," 
"A Descent into the Maelstrom," "The Tell-Tale Heart." His 
one long story, "The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym," is a tale 
of adventure. 

As far as subject matter is concerned it is not easy to make 
a satisfactory classification of the stories. Some of them, 
such as "Silence" and "Shadow," are mere sketches in poetic 
prose; several, such as "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Pit and 
the Pendulum," and "The Fall of the House of Usher," might 
be called studies in the psychology of terror or horror; a few, 
such as "Hans Pfaal," "A Descent into the Maelstrom," and 
"Eureka," are pseudo-scientific; some are detective stories — ■ 
"The Purloined Letter," ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue"; 
"WiUiam Wilson" (partly reminiscent of Poe's school days in 
England) is a study in dual personahty; several are delicate 
pastels of ethereal beauty — "Morella," "Eleonora." In general, 
the stories center about three motives — terror, beauty, mystery. 
Poe recurs time and again to a few favorite situations and 
suggestions. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 269 

In structure the stories, according to Professor C. Alphonso 
Smith, ^ ''fall into only two classes .... In the first, 
there is an unbroken cumulative movement from the first 
paragraph to the last; in the second, the mystery deepens in 
the first half and is completely solved in the second half. The 
first type may be represented by a capital A : the fines converge 
and culminate at the apex; the second type may be represented 
by a capital B: the story in other words is di\'ided into two 
equal and corresponding sections or semi-circles." Illustrations 
of the first type are 'The Fall of the House of Usher" and 
"The Pit and the Pendulum"; of the second, "The Purloined 
Letter" and "The Gold Bug." The stories of the first class 
move steadily to a climax; those of the second — detective 
stories — set forth the facts in the first half and the explanation 
in the latter half. The A-t}T»e stories have more "atmosphere" ; 
the B-type stories are more severely intellectual, being more or 
less of the nature of puzzles. 

Poe had a well-defined theory for the making of a short 
story, which he enunciated in this famous paragraph from his 
review of Hawthorne's Tales (1842): 

A skillful artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned 
his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with 
deliberate care, a certain imique or single cfect to be wrought out, he 
then invents such incidents — he then combines such events as may 
best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial 
sentence tends not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed 
in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word 
written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one 
preestablished design. And by such means, with such care and skill, 
a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who con- 
templates 't with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. 



iC. Alphonso Smith: ^'The American Short Story," pp. 22-23. This 
admirable account of the American Short Story was originally delivered 
as a lecture at the University of Berlin when the author \va§ '"Roose- 
velt Professor" there. 



270 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

To this theory Poe adhered with admirable consistency. 
In any story of his there is perfect unity, ^^totahty of effect,'* 
as he called it, compression and economy of language. From 
the first sentence to the last the movement is by the ' 'air-fine" 
method, without the waste of a word. Herein he differs from 
his great contemporary, Hawthorne. Hawthorne's stories 
move in a more leisurely, rambling fashion, and they often have 
introductions or bits of description which delay the movement. 
Poe goes at the subject in the most direct way, without pre- 
liminary remarks. Moreover, Hawthorne, as we have seen, 
is fond of moralizing; the ethical element looms large in his 
stories, and the ''moral tag," a sort of concluding ''preachment," 
often drives home the point. Poe, on the contrary, does not 
morafize; and if perchance the ethical element is present — 
as it occasionally is — it is mainly in solution, purely inferential. 
There is, besides, far less use of physical symbol in Poe than in 
Hawthorne. And so these two great short-story writers 
differ in several important respects. Both of them notably 
fulfill the conditions of a successful modern short story as laid 
down by Professor Brander Matthews,^ namely, that, at its 
best, it should have compression, originality, ingenuity, and a 
touch of fancy. In structure, however, Poe is the superior 
artist. In him the loose sketch of Irving had, so to speak, 
evolved into the perfect form. 

His Critical Essays. — As an editor and contributor to maga- 
zines, Poe naturally wrote many book reviews; as a creator of 
fiterature, he took pains to set forth in careful detail his critical 
theories. Much of his book-reviewing was hackwork, done 
imder pressure for the waiting printer, and may be passed over 
without extensive comment. One of these reviews, however, 
has come to be regarded as one of the most valuable pieces of 
criticism in our fiterature — the review of Hawthorne's Prose 
Tales from which the discussion of the essentials of the short 
story, or ''prose tale," has just been quoted. As a critic of 
I Brander ^a,tth^w3 ; The Philosophy of (f^ Short Story, p, g3, 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 271 

contemporary authors, Poe was refreshingly independent, a 
genuine free lance. He was not always just — as, for instance, 
when he so severely belabored Longfellow for plagiarism — 
but his judgments, in the main, have proved to be those of 
posterity. He cordially dishked the namby-pamby, flatter- 
ing reviews of his day, when American writers were saying soft, 
sweet things of each other, often regardless of truth. His 
pungent and, at its best, discriminating comments cleared the 
air; for despite his prejudices and his little jealousies, Poe did 
justice to Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Lowell. Longfellow 
he put at the head of American poets, and was enthusiastic 
in his praise of Lowell and Hawthorne. 

Two other essays by Poe are standard pieces of literary 
criticism — The Poetic Principle and The Philosophy of Com- 
position. In the first of these he elaborates his theory of 
poetry, the gist of which is, that poetry, "the rhythmical 
creation of beauty," has as its object the giving of pleasure 
and not the imparting of truth or the enforcing of a moral; and 
that a long poem, since intense, pleasurable emotion cannot 
be long sustained, is a ''contradiction in terms." Long epic 
poems are accordingly simply a string of short poems. In 
The Philosophy of Composition Poe goes into a detailed and, 
it must be confessed, somewhat tedious exposition of how he 
composed ''The Raven." His analytic, puzzle-loving mind 
delighted in such pieces of mental gymnastics, but the reader, 
however loyal he may be to Poe, inwardly protests against 
such a dissection of a poetic masterpiece. 

Characteristics and Contribution. — Poe was first of all a 
pure artist. The artistic instinct in him never slept. He 
had an infalHble sense of form. He loved the unusual, the 
weird, the creatures and places on the borderland of spirit and 
matter. He hated the conventional and the commonplace. 
His poetic scenes are in the "misty mid-region of Weir." The 
persons and places of his short stories are naturally more 
tangible, more human, though many of them reflect no locality 



272 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

known to the geographers. His women — Berenice, Morella, 
Ligeia, Eleonora, Lenore, Madeline, Helen, Annabel Lee — 
are shadow^^ beings, phantoms of unearthly loveliness, that die 
young. Youthful beauty touched with the chill of death is to 
him the very essence of poetry. Cavernous glooms, remote 
regions with haunting liquid names, voices of horror and of 
ineffable sweetness, refrains and echoes, — these are some of 
the things that make the web of his wonderful verse and suggest 
to the mind a series of enchanting pictures and to the ear a 
concourse of charming sounds. Music, indeed, is an all- 
pervading element of his poetry. 

Along with this ethereal imagination there was in Poe the 
highest analytical power. The mathematical faculty was 
, united with the purely artistic to an unusual degree. He 
liked to solve hard riddles and complicated cryptograms; 
indeed, he wasted a good deal of time on these exercises, when 
he might have been writing immortal poems and stories. He 
read the first few chapters of Dickens's Barnahy Rudge, and 
correctly foretold the rest of the plot. In several of his sketches 
he predicted with amazing accuracy some of the wonders of 
modern invention, such as skyscrapers and airships. His 
mind dwelt on the mysteries of the world and his imagination 
bodied forth strange creations out of the unknown. 

The poetry of Poe is limited in quantity and in range of 
subject matter, but in originality, beauty, and harmonious 
effects, it is the highest in American literature. More than 
any other of our poets he has what we instinctively feel to be 
the quality of pure genius. Poe is the father of the modem 
short story. With the appearance of ' 'Berenice" in 1835 the 
short story took on a compact, unified form, which it has 
ever since maintained. Poe invented the detective story, that 
numerous and popular branch of the story family: 'The 
Murders in the Rue Morgue" and ''The Purloined Letter" are 
prototypes of the ''Sherlock Holmes" stories. Poe was an 
acute and original critic. He has made valuable contributions 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 273 

on the theory of poetry and of the short story, and on the 
philosophy of composition. 

The fame of Poe abroad is probably greater than that of any 
other American writer, while at home it has steadily grown as 
the shadows cast by his unfortunate hfe have receded through 
the years. Foreign writers, such as Swinburne, Rossetti, 
Stevenson, Jules Verne, Guy de Maupassant, and Baudelaire, 
have acknowledged their indebtedness to him as a master of 
verse and of the short story; others have paid him the tribute 
of imitation. As an artist of the beautiful and the terrible, 
as an idealist, as a dreamer of fantastic as well as beneficent 
dreams, his appeal is world-wide. 

SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881) 

His Life. — Sidney Lanier, poet and essayist, was born in Macon, 
Georgia, February 3, 1842, the son of a lawyer. He came of an ancestry 
of musicians; several Laniers were directors of music at the English 
Court from Elizabeth to Charles II. His first paternal American 
ancestor came to Virginia in 1716; his mother was a Virginian of Scotch 
descent. The Laniers were of Huguenot extraction. From his childhood 
the future poet had a passion for music; he was able at an early age to 
play on almost every musical instrument, but his favorite was the flute. 
At fourteen he entered the sophomore class of Oglethorpe College, 
Midway, Georgia, where he graduated in 1860. His fine record won for 
him a position as instructor in the college. 

The next year the war began and Lanier joined the Confederate army. 
His battalion went to Virginia, and he took part in the battles around 
Richmond. He was in the Signal Service in Virginia and North Carolina, 
and finally became an oflScer on a blockade runner. His vessel was 
captured in 1864 and he was imprisoned for five months at Point Look- 
out. During the earlier part of the war Sidney Lanier and his brother 
Clifford were together; indeed, Sidney had refused promotion in order 
that he might not be separated from his brother. Released in February, 
1865, he returned on foot to Georgia, with a twenty-dollar gold piece 
in his pocket and his dear flute, which had cheered him through the 
trying years of war. But his health was shattered; within him were 
the seeds of consumption; the rest of his life was a struggle against that 
dread disease. 



274 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



While in the army Lanier had begun a novel on his war experiences; 
this he finished in 1867 while clerking at a hotel in Montgomery, Alabama, 
and published in New York the same year under the title, Tiger Lilies. 
The book was not successful, and the young author tried school-teaching 
for a while. In December, 1867, he married Miss Mary Day, of Macon, 
Georgia. Returning to Macon in 1868, he began the study of law with 
his father. For the next five years he studied and practised law in 
Macon, but his heart was not in that profession. Music and literature, 
his first loves, still called him. But in the South, distracted by the 
woes of Reconstruction times, there was little opportunity for the gentler 
arts. Accordingly, Lanier, disregarding the protest of kindred and 




BIRTHPLACE OF LANIER 
Macon, Ga. 



friends, who saw in his determination to devote himself to music and 
letters only hardship and failure, went North, and in 1873 found employ- 
ment as first flute in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore. 
So far as possible, his father, won over by his son's courageous love for 
his art, aided him in carrying out his plans; and Mrs. Lanier, who with 
the children remained in Macon, encouraged the poet with unselfish 
devotion. 

From 1873 to his death Lanier's home was Baltimore, and his profession 
was musical and literary. Here he found musicians, literary people, 
and libraries. He made firm friends, among whom were Gibson Peacock, 
the Philadelphia editor; Charlotte Cushman, the great actress; and 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 275 

Bayard Taylor, poet and traveler. Realizing the need of wider and 
deeper knowledge if he would speak with authority on music and litera- 
ture, he became a diligent student of early English literature. 

Recurring attacks of his disease compelled him to seek health in 
visits to the mountains of North Carolina and to the sunny climate of 
Florida. His work, however, went steadily on: he wrote guidebooks 
for railroad companies and did other kinds of hackwork; he lectured to 
schools and private classes, wrote magazine articles and poems, and 
prepared editions of old romances for young people. His poem, ^'Corn," 
published in LippincoWs Magazine in 1875, won high praise; and the 
next year, through Bayard Taylor's interest in him, he was asked to 
write the cantata for the opening of the Centennial Exposition at Phila- 



ASPIRO iJI M I \S!'1K( 



$:^isiBJt€^FiJ^it^NiGm'.a 



:: FOET y. 
LECTIIREB-HERECN ,, L ITER. \TC RE 1579 • ISSl 



MEMORIAL TABLET TO LANIER 

Johns Hopkins University 

delphia. His family now joined him in Baltimore. Other trips to the 
South in search of health followed. Still he labored on with intense 
consecration to his twin arts, playing in concerts and giving lectures on 
literature. 

In 1879 Lanier was appointed lecturer on English literature at Johns 
Hopkins University, a position which afforded him an assured income 
and which was entirely congenial. For this he had well prepared him- 
self by the serious study of Old English and by a great range of reading. 
His lectures at Johns Hopkins were mainly on the relation between 
music and verse and on the development of the English novel. Many 
of these were delivered in great bodily weakness: the lecturer was, 
towards the last, unable to stand, and his voice could scarcely be heard, 
while his temperature was sometimes as high as one hundred and four. 
But the stady, the writing of lectures, and the making of poems went 
steadily on. 

The rest of the tragic story may be told in a few sentences. The 
sufferer, accompanied by his brother Clifford, went in May, 1881, to 
the naountains of North Carolina, near Asheville, to try the virtues o£ 



276 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

camp life. Mrs. Lanier soon joined him, and the poet was moved to 
Lynn, in the same state. A slight improvement followed, but it was 
only the rift in the clouds before sunset. On September 7, 1881, Lanier's 
life went out. He was buried in Baltimore. In the halls of the Uni- 
versity, which he served so briefly and yet with such distinction, a 
memorial tablet has been placed to his memory. 

His Personality. — 'The appearance of Lanier was striking," 
says Dr. Oilman. ^'There was nothing eccentric or odd about 
him, but his words, manners, ways of speech, were dis- 
tinguished.'' Another friend^ thus pictures him: ^'His eye, of 
bluish gray, was more spiritual than dreamy — except when he 
was suddenly aroused, and then it assumed a hawklike fierce- 
ness. The transparent delicacy of his skin and complexion 
pleased the eye, and his fine-textured hair, which was soft 
and almost straight and of a light brown color, was combed 
behind the ear in Southern style. His long beard, which was 
wavy and pointed, had even at an early age begun to show signs 
of turning gray. His nose was aquiline, his bearing was 
distinguished, and his manners W3re stamped with a high 
breeding that befitted the 'Cavalier' lineage." 

All who knew Lanier bear witness to his charming personality. 
His refinement and distinction of manner impressed strangers, 
while his sympathetic interest in people and things made 
friends. His home life was beautiful. In him were combined 
the domestic virtues and the high gift of song. Along with 
these went an immense capacity for work: the pathos of his 
life is found in his struggle for deep and varied knowledge 
under the grim shadow of death. He was a man of open mind 
and modern spirit, hospitable to the new and reverent toward 
the best in the old. His life was worthy of his ideals. *'He 
always seemed to me," writes one^ who knew him, *'to stand 



iH. Clay Wysham in The Independent, November 18, 1897. This and 
the preceding quotation are taken from Mims's Life of Sidney Lanier, pp. 
300-301. 

2 Quoted from a letter in Mims's Life of Sidney Lanier, p. 303. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



277 




SIDNEY LANIER 



278 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

for chivalry as well as poetry, and his goodness was something 
you felt at once and never forgot.'' 

His Poetry. — A slender volume of verse, the production of 
fifteen or sixteen years, is the contribution of Sidney Lanier 
to our poetry. The earliest poem we have, 'The Dying 
Words of Stonewall Jackson," belongs to the years 1865; the 
latest, "Sunrise," is the inspiration of a dying man. Among 
his shorter poems, all essentially lyrical, are "My Springs," 
"Evening Song," "Life and Song," "The Waving of the Corn," 
"The Mocking Bird," "Tampa Robins," "Song of the Chatta- 
hoochee," and "Ballad of Trees and the Master." Of these 
the "Song of the Chattahoochee" (1877) is the best known. 
The movement of the poem at once takes the ear; the hasten- 
ing stream becomes a human voice telling of experiences in its 
winding course and of temptations resisted. Deaf to the calls 
of daUiance along th^. way, the Chattahoochee hurries along on 
its mission of duty to dwellers in the lowlands: 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham, ^ 

And OQ, not the valleys of Hall^ 
Avail : i am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain, 

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Calls through the valleys of Hall. 

The finest of the short lyrics is "Evening Song," perfect in 
form and in haunting melody. It suggests an Elizabethan 
lyric, into which has come a modem wistfulness, such as one 
finds in several songs in Tennyson's Princess: 

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,- 
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, 

How long they kiss in sight of all the lands, 
Ah! longer, longer, we. 



?CQiffltiie8 ifl flQTtUefiSteni Georgia, 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 279 

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, 
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine, 

And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done, 
Love, lay thine hand in mine. 

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart; 

Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. 
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart 

Never our lips, our hands. 

''The Waving of the Corn" reflects the full richness of the 
Southern field in summertime even better than does his longer 
poem, ''Corn" (1875), which was the first of his productions to 
attract wide attention. "Clover" (1876) is another poem of 
color and fragrance. ''Life and Song" treats of the poet's 
art as an outward expression of the poet's life — 

His song was only living aloud. 
His work a singing with the hand. 

'"'My Springs" is a loving tribute to his wife's eyes: 

My springs from out whose shining gray 

Issue the sweet, celestial streams 

That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams. 

Of the longer poems, those most truly expressive of Lanier's 
genius are "The Symphony," "The Marshes of Glynn," and 
"Sunrise." "The Symphony" (1875) is a plea for more heart 
and less head in our national industrial life — a more humane 
treatment of the poor. It is an indictment of Trade's heartless 
arrogance by a chorus of musical instruments, in which the 
clear notes of the flute and the violin are the voices pleading 
for a chivalry of labor. The poem closes with the oft-quoted 
hne: 

Music is Love in search of a word. 

"The Marshes of Glynn" is one of a projected series of six 
poems, only three of which were completed. The "marshes" 
are those of Glynn county, Georgia^ around the seacoast city 



280 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of Brunswick. In ''The Marshes of Glynn" the time is a June 
evening; the sun is setting and the tide is coming in. The 
impressive scene is painted in alternating lights and shadows: 
the musical stanzas, varied to harmonize with the coloring of 
the forest and the movement of the flood, swell out to the 
final union of marsh and sea. The poet's soul is exalted and 
set free by the vastness and peace of the scene: 

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free 
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! 
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, 
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won 
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain 

The sweep and majesty, the moral suggestiveness, and the 
solemn musical tones, of "The Marshes of Glynn" entitle it 
to be called Lanier's masterpiece. It shows a sureness of 
grasp and a definiteness rarely found in his poetry. Read 
aloud in a sympathetic voice it takes captive the ear and 
upHfts the spirit by its harmony and its splendid imagery. 

''Sunrise" is in sad reality the poet's sunset hymn. He 
penned it in weakness, when the hectic flush was coloring his 
fancy. It is a rhapsody of sweet sounds and a riot of colors. 
All the million-veined splendor bursts full-orbed in the rising 
sun, which seems to symbolize the triumph of art over traffic: 

Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas 

Of traffic shall hide thee. 
Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories 

Hide thee, 
Never the reek of the time's fen-politics 

Hide thee, 
And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge 

Abide thee, 
And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath 

Tried thee, 
Labor, at leisure, in art, — till yonder beside thee 
My soul shall float, friend Sun, 
The day being done. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 281 

Less musical and of clearer structure are the two ballads, 



"The Revenge of Hamish'^ and "How Love Looked for Hell," 
good narrative pieces of considerable dramatic power. '"The 
Psalm of the West'* (1876) is a fine centennial hymn. 

Lanier had lofty ideas in regard to the mission and the form 
of poetry. He emphasizes the moral element in art; herein he 
differs from Poe. "Unless you are suffused with truth, wisdom, 
goodness, and love,'* said he, "abandon the hope that the ages 
will accept you as an artist." His poetry is accordingly 
leavened with spiritual truth. "The beauty of holiness and the 
holiness of beauty" is a favorite phrase with him. He believed, 
moreover, that between poetry and music there is a close 
kinship. This theory he fully elaborates in his Science of 
English Verse, which will be briefly considered presently. 
Throughout his poetry the musical element gives tone and 
color; indeed, several poems are so formless, so much a matter 
of sound, that they seem to hover midway between the articu- 
late and the inarticulate, ever on the point of vanishing into 
"airy nothings." They are struggling to be free from the 
bondage of speech; they would clothe themselves in the shim- 
mering and tenuous vestments of musical rhapsody. Language 
fails and only the radiant, ethereal spirit of melody remains. 

His Prose Works. — Lanier prepared editions of several old ro- 
mances for boys — King Arthur, Matdnogion, Froissart, Percy — 
in which he succeeded, in spite of the hackwork nature of the 
undertaking, for the subjects were congenial to his poetic 
temperament. Other prose works are The Science of English 
Verse, The Development of the English Novel, and Shakespeare 
and his Predecessors, originally prepared as lectures. Of these 
works only one, The Science of English Verse, demands notice. 

In The Science of English Verse Lanier sets forth with 
abundant illustration the theory that poetry may be musically 
annotated. Poetry, he says, should be measured, as music is, 
by time rather than by accent. Instead of feet in poetic scansion 
he would have beats — time-units instead of stress-units. He 



282 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

would not count syllables and accents, but measures; and he 
would gain richness of coloring — ^what is called *' tone-color" — 
by the free use of alliteration, assonance, and rhyme. In 
short, he would apply to poetry the principles of musical com- 
position. This theory Lanier works out with great ingenuity, 
and to lyric verse its application often seems warranted, for the 
pure lyric and music are closely akin. In general, however, the 
theory attaches entirely too much importance to sound and 
color, to the neglect of substance and clearness. It is an 
interesting and clever attempt to effect a perfect union between 
music and poetry, but more admirable than convincing. 

Characteristics and Contribution. — Lanier's poetry reflects 
the coloring of Southern field and stream and forest. It shows 
a delicate appreciation of the myriad lights and shadows of 
landscape and wood. It reveals a high-souled, chivalrous 
regard for trees, herbs, birds, and flowers. Between the poet 
and nature there seems to exist a Platonic friendship — ^no 
common intimacy, but a sacred reverence for personality in 
natural objects. Along with this coloring and spiritual sensi- 
bility goes the perfection of harmony. Music is everywhere; 
his soul is steeped in it. 

Lanier's unique contribution, then, is the consistent applica- 
tion of musical technique to poetry. New metrical forms and 
stanza-arrangements were brought by him into English verse. 
Herein he most resembles Swinburne. To unmusical people 
his poetry is sometimes vague and almost meaningless, because 
the idea is so often merely secondary. ''He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear." This exquisite tone-color frequently 
means the sacrifice of directness and simplicity. His poetry 
is apt to impress the casual reader as involved and fragmentary 
— ^meandering rivulets of song losing themselves in marsh or 
clover field. But despite its formal limitations, the verse of 
Lanier has the clear accent of originahty and loftiness. It is 
luminous with the sense of imperishable beauty and vital with 
human sympathy and spiritual ideals. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



283 




HENRY TIMROD 



HENRY TIMROD (1829-1867) 

His Life. — Henry Timrod was born in Charleston, South Carolina, 
December 8, 1829. On his father's side he was of German descent, and 
on his mother's, of English. His father was a man of literary taste and 
sometimes wrote poetry. Henry went to the Charleston schools and 
later, attended the University of Georgia, but delicate health and lack 
of means prevented him from remaining to take his degree. At school 
and college he was specially devoted to English literature and the 
classics and to athletic sports. He early showed a love for nature. 
Like many other literary men, he studied law only to find it distasteful. 
Then he did some tutoring. Meanwhile, he was writing poetry; his 
verses were published in Boston in 1860, but the small volume was 
little read in the stirring times of on-coming war. He entered the 
Confederate army, but soon found his weak constitution imequal to the 
hardships of camp life. He served as army correspondent, and in one 
way and another proved his loyalty to the cause in which his heart was 
enlisted. His stirring war lyrics show his patriotism. 



284 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In 1864 Timrod became associate-editor of the South Carolinian at 
Columbia. Feeling settled and having an assured income, he married 
Miss Kate Goodwin, of Charleston, an English girl— the "Saxon Kate" 
whom he celebrates in several poems. But disease was making rapid 
inroads on his frail body, despite the cheerful struggle of his dauntless 
spirit. The death of his child added to his sorrows. The desolation of 
war was about him, and too weak to work, he was manfully fighting a 
losing battle. Poverty was an inmate of his home ; with pathetic humor 
he wrote to his friend Paul Hamilton Hayne: "We have — let me see — 
yes, we have eaten two silver pitchers, one or two dozen silver forks, 
several sofas, innumerable chairs, and a huge — bedstead!" Thus was 
his household furniture going foi* food. A visit to the poet Hayne at 
Copse Hill, Georgia, brought a slight improvement in his health, but 
it was only temporary. Shortly after his return to Columbia the end 
came, and the poet was laid to rest by the side of his child in Trinity 
churchyard in that citj^ "His latest occupation was correcting the 
proof sheets of his own poems, and he passed away with them by his 
side, stained with his lifeblood." 

His Personality. — ''In stature," says Dr. Bruns,^ 'Timrod 
was far below the medium height. He had always excelled in 
boyish sports, and, as he grew to manhood, his unusual breadth 
of shoulder still seemed to indicate a physical vigor which the 
slender wrists, thin transparent hands, and habitually lax 
attitude too plainly contradicted. His square jaw was almost 
stem in its strongly pronounced lines, the mouth large, the 
lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray eyes set deeply under 
massive brows, and full of a melancholy and pleading tender- 
ness, which attracted attention to his face at once, as the face 
of one who had thought and suffered much.'' 

This same friend also speaks of Timrod's shyness and reserve 
in general society and of his readiness to speak out his heart to a 
congenial companion. He was a man of deep sympathy and 
of an almost feminine gentleness of temperament. His de- 
votion to his family and his friends was beautiful, for he had 
an affectionate nature. In that little circle of Hterary spirits 
whom William Gilmore Simms gathered about him at Charles- 



iProm the Memorial Edition of Henry Timrod's Poems, Introduction, 
pp. xv-xvi. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



285 



ton, Timrod was one of the choicest and ablest. His cheerful- 
ness and courage in suffering and poverty command our admira- 
tion. 

His Poetry. — In 1873, six years after Timrod's death, his 
friend Hayne edited his poems, to which was prefixed a memoir. 
Not until 1899 was the ''Memorial Edition'^ pubHshed; this 




l'S^j;^S^ 



HOME OF TIMROD 
Columbia, S. C. 

standard collection of his poems was the work of the "Timrod 
Memorial Association." In this small volume is to be found 
some of the most representative poetry of the South. Broadly 
speaking, the work of Timrod falls into four classes — nature 
poems, personal tributes, patriotic lyrics, and sonnets. 

In his nature poems Timrod was singularly happy. ''The 
Cotton Boir' is justly one of the most famous American poems. 
It is full of the hazy, dreamy, gleaming atmosphere of the 
lower South. Out of the snowy httle boll the poet musically 
evolves a wealth of color and magic power, which, in his rapt 
vision, is both radiantly beautiful and truly beneficent. 



286 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

I turn thy cloven sheath, 

Through which the soft white fibers peer, 

That, with their gossamer bands, 

Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands, 

And slowly, thread by thread. 

Draw forth the folded strands; . . • 

And as the tangled skein 

Unravels in my hands, 

Betwixt me and the noonday light, 

A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles 

The landscape broadens on my sight, 

As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell 

Like that which, in the ocean shell. 

With mystic sound. 

Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, 

And turns some city lane 

Into the restless main. 

With all his capes and isles! .... 

Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; 

And gladdening rich and poor, 

Doth gild Parisian domes, 

Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes. 

And only bounds its blessings by mankind! 

The stanzas entitled ''Spring" form one of the freshest 
spring poems in English or American verse. The fragrant 
breath of the new season is in these lines, and the goddess of 
spring appears while you are looking: 

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns 
Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
Into a royal court with green festoons 
The banks of dark lagoons. 

In the deep heart of every forest tree 
The blood is all aglee. 

And there's a look about the leafless bowers 
As if they dreamed of flowers. 

. . . . and you scarce would start. 

If from a beech's heart, 

A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, 

''Behold me! I am May!' V 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 287 

Among the poems of personal tribute, direct or indirect, the 
one called ''Katie'' deserves i&rst place. It is in honor of 
his wife, who was an English girl. Consider the grace and 
color of this passage, fragrant with the bloom of English 
meadows: 

I meet her on the dusty street, 
And daisies spring about her feet; 
Or, touched to life beneath her tread, 
An English cowslip lifts its head; 
And, as to do her grace, rise up 
The primrose and the buttercup! 
I roam with her through fields of cane, 
And seem to stroll an English lane. 
Which, white with blossoms of the May, 
Spreads its green carpet in her way! 

Timrod was passionately devoted to his native state, and the 
best of his patriotic verse celebrates the virtues of South 
Carolina, or the heroism of her sons who fell in the War between 
the States. Through the poem ''Carolina'^ rings the militant 
call of patriotism: 

Girt with such wills to do and bear, 
Assured in right, and mailed in prayer. 
Thou wilt not bow thee to despair, 
Carolina! 

Throw thy bold banner to the breeze! 
Front with thy ranks the threatening seas 
Like thine own proud armorial trees, ^ 
Carolina! 

The ''Ode" written for the decoration of the Confederate 
graves in MagnoHa Cemetery, Charleston, in 1867, is one of 
the finest lyrics in American literature — almost as perfect in 
form and phrasing as an ode of the EngHsh poet, Collins: 



1 Palmetto trees in the seal of South Carolina. 



288 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, 
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; 

Though yet no marble column craves 
The pilgrim here to pause. 

In seeds of laurel in the earth 
The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth. 
The shaft is in the stone! 

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years 

Which keep in trust your storied tombs, 

Behold! your sisters bring their tears, 
And these memorial blooms. 



Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! 

There is no holier spot of ground 
Than where defeated valor lies, 

By mourning beauty crowned! 



Timrod wrote a series of fifteen sonnets, several of which 
show great artistic merit. The first sonnet in the series gives 
Timrod's own poetic creed: 

Poet! if on lasting fame be bent 

Thy unperturbing hopes, thou wilt not roam 

Too far from thine own happy heart and home; 

Cling to the lowly earth and be content! 

So shall thy name be dear to many a heart; 

So shall the noblest truths by thee be taught; 

The flower and fruit of wholesome human thought 

Bless the sweet labors of thy gentle art. 

The brightest stars are nearest to the earth. 

And we may track the mighty sun above. 

Even by the shadow of a slender flower. 

Always, O bard, humility is power! 

And thou mayest draw from matters of the hearth 

Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love. 

Poetic Qualities. — Sensitiveness to the delicate sights and 
sounds of nature is revealed in the poetry of Timrod. He had 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 289 

the gift of the happy word, and he strikes off now and then an 
exceedingly feUcitous phrase. There is a crystal clearness in 
his lines which comes from a fundamental sincerity and sim- 
plicity in his thinking and feehng. He had a sense for perfec- 
tion that belongs to the true artist. Some of his lyrics have 
strains that strongly suggest Collins and Tennyson. Timrod 
caught with exquisite grace the beauty of Southern field and 
wood. He worships beauty, but he is none the less a devout 
ministrant at the shrine of truth. He is, withal, a true son of 
the South — ''probably the most finely endowed mind/' says 
Professor Trent, *'to be found in Carolina, or indeed in the 
whole South, at this period." 

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE (1830-1886) 

His Life. — Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South 
Carolina, January 1, 1830, the son of a naval officer. The family to 
which he belonged was prominent politically and socially. His uncle, 
at whose house he spent much time after the death of his father, was 
Robert Y. Hayne, orator and statesman, who was Webster's antagonist 
in the famous debate in the United States Senate. After graduating at 
Charleston College, young Hayne studied law, but, as in the case of 
Lanier and of Timrod, it made- little appeal to him, and he turned to 
literature. As one of the editors of the Southern Literary Gazette and 
later as editor of Russell's Magazine, as a contributor to the Southern 
Literary Messenger, and as a member of Simms's literary coterie, he 
had good training for literature. From 1855 to 1859 he published in 
Boston three volumes of verse. Then the war came on and, too frail to 
be a regular soldier, he became aide to Governor Pickens, serving until 
his health gave way. The terrible ravages of war left him in poverty. 

Strong in hope and courage, Hayne went with his family at the close 
of the war to the barren pine-bluffs near Augusta, Georgia. On a little 
tract of land among the pine trees he built a rude cottage and named the 
place Copse Hill. With the cheerful helpfulness of his wife, he began 
life anew. The humble home was made happy by work and the spirit 
of content, great though the contrast was with the cultured surroundings 
of his earlier days. The world soon came to know of Copse Hill : hither 
came letters from English friends and admirers and from American 
writers of renown — Longfellow, Whittier, Bayard Taylor. Here in 
peace, though not in dreamful ease, Hayne spent the rest of his days, 



290 AMERICAN LITERATURE 




PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 

writing poetry and, so far as in him laj-, speaking words of reconciliation 
between the two great sections which war had rent asunder. An 
illustrated edition of his poems, with an introduction by Mrs. Margaret 
J. Preston, was published in Boston in 1882. The end came on July 6, 
1886, and the poet was laid to rest, ^'after life's fitful fever," in the 
cemetery at Augusta, Georgia. In this city a monument has been 
erected to his memory. 

His Personality. — One who knew him well speaks of Hayne's 

''distinguished appearance with starry magnetic 

eyes that glowed with responsive sympathy.'' Sympathy was, 
indeed, a dominant trait in him; it is not necessary to read 
widely in his poetry to discover that, and the testimony of his 
friends confirms it. Those who visited him at Copse Hill 
forgot the crudeness of his dwelling and the desolation of the 
region in the personal charm of their host. He had, of course, 
a sensitive feeling for beauty; he had also a deep sense of human 
brotherhood. As an evidence of this last may be mentioned 
his ardent desire for a speedy reconciliation between the North 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 291 

and the South. His cheerfulness and courage, his uncomplain- 
ing endurance of privation after years of cultured independence, 
and his steadfast devotion to literature for a livehhood, give 
to his life a touch of the heroic. 

His Poetry. — Hayne wrote a large amount of poetry; the 
authorized edition of 1882 contains more verses and a greater 
variety of themes than the works of Lanier and Timrod com- 
bined. The poems are grouped under such headings as ''Youth- 
ful Poems," ''Sonnets," "Dramatic Sketches," "Poems of the 
War," "Legends and Lyrics," "Humorous Poems," and "Poems 
for Children." In so brief a treatment as this, a few typical 
poems — lyrics of sentiment, mainly on nature's moods and 
messages — must suffice to illustrate Hayne's quaUties. The 
group called "Legends and Lyrics" contains some of his finest 
verse. 

The perfect understanding of his pine-tree neighbors, stand- 
ing hke silent sentinels all about him, is seen in lines like the 
following from "Aspects of the Pines"; indeed, the larger 
significance of nature — its calming effect on the human spirit — 
breathes through these verses: 

Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky 
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, 

Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, 
As if from realms of mystical despairs. 

A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable, 

Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease, 

And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell 
Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace. 

Elsewhere he writes of "The Pine's Mystery": 

Passion and mystery murmur through the leaves, 
Passion and mystery, touched by deathless pain, 

Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves 
For something lost that shall not live again I 



292 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

One of his most pleasing poems is 'The Mocking-Bircls/' 
those enchanting songsters of the Southern wood so dear to the 
poetic heart. This is the first of the eight stanzas: 

Oh! all day long they flood with song 

The forest shades, the fields of light; 
Heaven's heart is stilled, and strangely thrilled 

By ecstasies of lyric might; 
From flower-crowned nooks of splendid dyes, 

Lone dells a shadowy quiet girds, 
Far echoes wakening, gently rise. 
And o'er the woodland track send back 

Soft answers to the mocking-birds! 

The soft, languorous breezes of the far South woo the reader 
in imagination through lines like these from ''A Dream of the 
South Winds": 

From the distant Tropic strand, 
Where the billows, bright and bland, 
Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, 
faint under-tune. 
From its fields of purpling flowers 
Still wet with fragrant showers, 
The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal 
blooms of June. 

Hayne was a prolific writer of sonnets. No other American 
poet, indeed, has written so many. Many of these attain high 
levels of excellence; compelhng lines, happy phrases, thrill the 
sensitive reader now and then; as, for instance, the conclusion 
of this fine sonnet, *'My Study, '^ written before his Charleston 
house was burned: 

This is my world! within these narrow walls, 
I own a princely service. The hot care 
And tumult of our frenzied life are here 
But as a ghost and echo; what befalls 
In the far mart to me is less than naught; 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 293 

I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies, 

And wander by the brink of hoary seas, 

Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought; 

Or if a livelier humor should enhance 

The slow-time pulse, 'tis not for present strife, 

The sordid zeal with which our age is rife, 

Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance, 

But gleamings of the lost, heroic life, 

Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance. 

One of the last poems of Hayne is called "In Harbor.'' 
There are lines in it suggestive of Poe, but more human and 
more trustful : 

I think it is over, over, 

I think it is over at last, 
Voices of f oeman and lover, 

The sweet and the bitter have passed; 
Life, like a tempest of ocean, 

Hath outblown its ultimate blast; 
There's but a faint sobbing seaward 
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, 
And behold! like the welcoming quiver 
Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, 

Those lights in the harbor at last, 

The heavenly harbor at last ! 

Poetic Qualities. — Hayne' s life of isolation in the Georgia 
pines gave his verse a flavor peculiarly Southern. "The 
place,'' says Maurice Thompson,* "became a sort of Southern 
Mecca, to which loving folk made pilgrimages; and its name, 
'Copse Hill,' grew familiar to all the world." Naturally, 
therefore, the sights and sounds about him formed the staple 
of Hayne's poetry. The best of it is lyric, showing a dehcate 
perception of nature — her endless variety and her gentle 
harmonies. The pine and the mocking-bird sing in the lines. 
Music, mild meditation, and a faint undertone of sadness — • 
these are qualities felt by the reader of these lyrics. They 

iSee The Critic, Vol.38. 



294 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



reflect a gentle, sympathetic, refined soul, an artist of the 
beautiful — '^the last literary Cavalier.". The technique of his 
verse entitles him to a high rank among nineteenth century 
singers: its smoothness, melody, and imagery charm the ear 




COPSE HILL 
Home of Hayne, near Augusta, -Ga. 



and inner eye. There are touches of Wor.dsworth, Tennyson, 
and Poe, in the lyrics of Hayne; but at his best he is essentially 
original — ''the laureate of the South." 



Abram Joseph Ryan (1839-1886). Born in Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood in St. 
Louis and at Niagara, New York, Father Ryan lived in various 
Southern cities after his faithful service as chaplain in the 
Confederate army, but longest in Mobile, Alabama. 

During the yellow fever epidemic his ministry to the 
sick was unremitting. The last five years of his life were 
mostly given to lecturing and literature. He died in 
Louisville, Kentucky, in 1886. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



295 




FATHER RYAN 



Father Ryan's poems, or 
''verses," as he too modestly 
preferred to call them, reveal 
an earnest, s>Tiipathetic, sin- 
cere soul, intensely patriotic 
and profoundly rehgious. His 
poems lay bare his heart, 
which was given unreserv- 
edly to the South. Lost 
causes are always poetic, and 
Father Ryan is preeminently 
the laureate of a lost cause. 
The two poems of his most 
often quoted are "The Con- 
quered Banner" and "The 
Sword of Robert Lee." 

The dominant strain in Ryan's poems is religious. He was 
a mystic. The eager yearning of his spirit for peace is felt in 
his verses; a note of restless seeking for something beyond his 
reach and sight is there; the prevailing tone is sad. Some of 
the pieces seem autobiographic; one fancies, for instance, that 
in "Their Story Runneth Thus" is half-hidden a boyish ro- 
mance of the poet's. Certainly the lyrics come from within: 
the emotion is simple and genuine, and the singer sings because 
he must. That is the reason Father Ryan has held his own 
beyond the troublous times that saw the birth of most of his 
songs. His simple, musical lines will continue to touch the 
hearts of that large number, which at times includes us all, 
who go to poetry mainly for its ministry to the gentler senti- 
ments and the primal emotions. 



John R. Thompson (1823-1873).— John Reuben Thompson 
was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1823, educated at the 
University of Virginia, and after studying law in the same 
institution, settled in Richmond, Like many other men of 



296 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

literary inclinations, he gave up the law and turned to letters. 
In 1847 he became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger j 
with which he continued until 1859. Going farther south for 
his health, he edited for a time the Southern Field and Fireside 
at Augusta, Georgia. In London, whither he had gone in 1863 
with the hope of aiding the Southern Confederacy, Thompson 
was on the staff of the London Index. Upon his return to 
America after the war, he became literary editor of the New 
York Evening Post. In this position he was making fame and 
friends, but ill-health drove him to Colorado, whence he re- 
turned to New York in 1873 only to die. He is buried in 
Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. 

While Thompson's service as editor of the Southern Literary 
Messenger, through which he introduced to the public a number 
of aspiring authors, was considerable, it is as a poet that he is 
chiefly remembered. Among his noteworthy poems are 
''Music in Camp,'' 'The Battle Rainbow," "Ashby," and "The 
Burial of Latane." His translation of Gustav Nadaud's 
famous little poem, "Carcassonne," is itself a classic. Thomp- 
son was a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, and his address on that 
wayward genius is one of the best pieces of contemporary 
appreciation. He was an acute critic and a writer of graceful, 
polished verse. 

James Barron Hope (1829-1887). — James Barron Hope was 
born in Norfolk, Virginia, educated at William and Mary 
College, served for a time as secretary to his uncle in the navy, 
studied law and in 1856 became commonwealth's attorney of 
Hampton, Virginia. Meanwhile, he had begun writing poetry 
for the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1857 his first volume, 
Leoni di Monota and Other Poems, was published in Philadelphia. 
The same year Hope delivered the memorial poem at the 
celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
settlement at Jamestown; the following year (1858) he recited 
a poem at the unveiling of Crawford's equestrian statue of 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 297 

Washington at Richmond. After the ^Yar, in which he served 
with distinction, he settled at Norfolk and engaged in journal- 
ism. He was chosen by Congress to write the poem for the 
Yorktown Centennial in 1881. For the laying of the corner- 
stone of the Lee statue in Richmond in 1887, he had prepared 
the poem, but another read it, for death had cut the poet off 
a month before. Because of his fame as a writer of patriotic 
memorial verses, Hope has been called ''Virginia's laureate." 

Margaret Jiinkin Preston (1820-1897). — Among the poets of 
the war period, Mrs. Margaret J. Preston holds a prominent 
place. She was born in Philadelphia, came with her father. 
Rev. George Junkin, D. D., to Lexington, Virginia, in 1848, 
when he assumed the presidency of Washington College 
(Washington and Lee University), married Professor Preston, 
of the Virginia Military Institute in 1857, and spent the rest 
of her long life in the little Virginia town. She was a woman 
of rich and varied culture and of rare social and literary gifts. 
Much of her poetry deals with the war and the heroes of the 
South; her story in verse, Beechenbrook (1866), is a picture of 
the great struggle and was very popular. In 1870 Mrs. Preston 
pubHshed a volume of poems. Old Songs and New, which had a 
wide reading North and South. Several other volumes fol- 
lowed — Cartons (1875), For Lovers Sake (1886), and Colonial 
Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verse (1887). Mrs. Preston is the 
representative poetess of the Confederacy; her war poems and 
her devotional lyrics constitute her finest verse, though she 
wrote well on other themes. Of the war poems those most 
often quoted are "The Shade of the Trees," founded on the 
last words of Stonewall Jackson, and "Gone Forward," re- 
ferring to the last words of General Lee. 

A Group of Famous Poems. — Six short poems by Southern 
singers have become classic, and are to be found in most pop- 
ular collections. These poems have saved their authors' 



298 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

names from oblivion; the poems are more than the poets. 
The first is Francis Scott Key's 'The Star-Spangled Banner" 
(1814), of which mention has alread}^ been made.^ The next 
in order of time is the Httle lyric, ''My Life is Like the Summer 
Rose" (1815), of Richard Henry Wilde of Georgia, originally 
entitled "Stanzas." The first stanza of the three is the most 
familiar, but the last is perhaps the best: 

My life is Hke the prints which feet 
♦ Have left on Tampa's desert strand; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 

All trace will vanish from the sand; 
Yet, as if grieving to efface 
All vestige of the human race, 
On that lone shore loud moans the sea — 
But none, alas! shall mourn for me! 

The third is "A Health" (1825), by Edward Coate Pinkney of 
Maryland, the first stanza of which is this: 

I fill this cup to one made up 

Of loveliness alone, 
A woman, of her gentle sex 

The seeming paragon; 
To whom the better elements 

And kindly stars have given 
A form so fair, that, like the air, 

'Tis less of earth than heaven. 

The fourth poem is "Florence Vane" (1847), by Philip Pendle- 
ton Cooke of Virginia, one stanza of which runs thus: 

Thou wast lovelier than the roses 

In their prime; 
Thy voice excelled the closes 

Of sweetest rhyme; 
Thy heart was as a river 

Without a main. 
Would I had loved thee never, 

Florence Vane! 



* See Page 97. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 299 

Another famous production is 'The Bivouac of the Dead'* 
(1847), by Theodore O'Hara of Kentucky, written in memory 
of the Kentucky soldiers who had fallen at Buena Vista in the 
Mexican War, when their remains were brought home. This is 
the finest martial elegy in American literature; its familiar 
lines are conspicuous in the national cemeteries: 

On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with solemn round 

The bivouac of the dead. 

Still another notable piece of verse is ''Maryland, My Mary- 
land" (1861), by James Ryder Randall, who at the time he 
wrote it was teaching in Louisiana. This is the best martial 
lyric of the wartime. 

To this group of six famous poems should be added "Little 
Giffen of Tennessee" (1867), by Dr. Francis O. Ticknor of 
Georgia — the true story of a wounded boy in the Confederate 
army whom Dr. Ticknor and his wife cared for. It is a lyric 
of great dramatic power. The concluding stanza is a fitting 
climax to the pathetic tale of heroism — a knightly tribute to 
the boy soldier, who, after he was nursed to health, bravely 
plunged into battle again and perished: 

I sometimes fancy that were I king 

Of the courtly knights of Arthur's ring, 

With the voice of the minstrel in mine ear, 

And the tender legend that trembles here, — 

I'd give the best on his bended knee. 

The whitest soul of my chivalry, 

For little Giffen of Tennessee. 

LATER POETS 

Beginning with the last quarter of the nineteenth century, 
literature in the South took on new life: the old order had 
passed and a new industrial movement heralded the birth of a 
fresh literary impulse. This has been interpreted to the world 



300 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



by many minor poets and by several who may justly lay claim 
to higher rank; of these major singers Sidney Lanier is chief, 
and has already been considered. It now remains to discuss 
his later contemporaries and successors. As representative 
of latter-day Southern poetry, only two are chosen for treat- 
ment in this brief sketch; others, some of them perhaps equally 
as important, must have merely a word of comment. 



John Banister Tabb 
(1845-1909). — John B. 
Tabb was born in Amelia 
county, Virginia; served 
on a blockade runner 
during the war and was 
imprisoned at Point 
Lookout, where he met 
Sidney Lanier; after the 
war he studied music and 
taught school; in 1884 he 
became a priest in the 
Roman Catholic Church; 
was professor of English 
in St. Charles College, 
Ellicott City, Maryland, 
until his death. His first 
volume of poems ap- 
peared in 1884; subsequent volumes were An Octave to Mary 
(1893), Poems Grave and Gay (1899), Later Lyrics (1902), and 
Rosary in Rhyme (1904). 

As the names of these volumes indicate, the poems of Father 
Tabb are lyrics grave and gay. Most of them are short — from 
four to eight, .ten, twelve lines, and each little lyric has unity 
of thought and sincerity of feeling. As a dewdrop or a gem, 
each mirrors a little bit of life, whether it be of nature, personal 
sentiment, or religious devotion; and each is an artistic whole, 




JOHN B. TABB 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 301 

daintily and delicately made. The touches of fancy suggest the 
Cavalier poets, but without their artificiahtj^ ; the airiness and 
lightness recall Sappho and Shelley and Keats, but with more 
human warmth. The poems on nature are perhaps the best, 
though the little conceits on love and life are exquisitely 
phrased. There is always a point to a poem — an idea delicately 
put in a small compass; the sentiment does not vanish in misty 
vagueness; the body may be slight, but it is still a body. Here 
are two stanzas from ^^Intimations" : 

I knew the flowers had dreamed of you, 
And hailed the morning with regret; 

For all their faces with the dew 
Of vanished joy were wet. 

I knew the winds had passed your way, 
Though not a sound the truth betrayed; 

About their pinions all the day 
A summer fragrance stayed. 

The charm of artistic restraint and elusive suggestion is in 
those lines. In the following little poem entitled ' 'Evolution" 
is compressed the whole of life, with intimations of immortality: 

Out of the dusk a shadow, 

Then, a spark; 
Out of the cloud a silence, 

Then, a lark; 
Out of the heart a rapture, 

Then, a pain; 
Out of the dead, cold ashes, 

Life again. 

Though limited in range, the verse of Father Tabb has not 
been surpassed in American poetry in the happy union of 
daintiness of form with compactness of thought. 

Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914).— Madison J. Cawein 
was born in Louisville, Kentucky, educated at the high school 
of that city, and found time from the demands of business 



302 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



life to write a large amount of poetry. During the last decade 
of the nineteenth, century, his poems began to attract wide 
attention from readers of magazines; in such a steady stream 
did they flow from his pen that, as originally pubhshed in 
book form, they fill more than twenty small volumes. His 
first volujne appeared in 1887 as Blooms of the Berry; others are: 

Moods and' Memories (1892), 
The Garden of Dreams (1896), 
Undertones {1S9Q) , Shapes and 
Shadows (1898), and Nature 
Notes and Impressions (1906). 
In 1902 a volume of selections 
from his poetry, called Ken- 
tucky Poems, was published, 
Tvdth an appreciative intro- 
duction by Edmund Gosse, 
the English critic; and in 
1907 a five-volume edition 
of his poems was issued. His 
first book of verse was warmly 
commended by WiUiam Dean 
Howells, and since then lovers 
of poetry at home and abroad 
have found in his lyrics notes 
of high distinction. 

The poetry of Cawein shows that he was a lover of nature and 
a subtle interpreter of her moods and coloring. He liked to 
write out of doors under the spell of her tones. He had a 
faculty of minute observation, and his sympathetic and sen- 
sitive spirit was dehcately responsive to the sights and sounds 
about him. For him the woods were still alive with the nymphs 
and fairies, as of old when the world was young: 

The gods are dead; but still for me 

Lives on in wildwood brook and tree 
Each mj^h, each old divinity. 




MADISON CAWEIN 






THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 303 

For me still laughs among her rocks 
The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks 
Drop perfume on the wild-flower flocks. 

And these lines from 'The Whippoorwill" have all the twilight 
atmosphere of the countryside in summer, tinged with the 
passionate glow of a poet's fancy: 

Above long woodland ways that led 
To dells the stealthy twilights tread, 
The west was hot geranium-red; 

And still, and still, 
Along old lanes, the locusts sow 
With clustered curls the May-times know, 
Out of the crimson afterglow, 
We heard the homeward cattle low, 
And then the far-off, far-off woe 

Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!" 

A calmer tone pervades 'To a Wind-Flower," something of 
Wordsworth and of Bryant: 

Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, 
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be 

As beautiful in thought, and so express 
Immoii:al truths to eaii;h's mortality; 

Though to my soul ability be less 
Than 'tis to thee, sweet anemone. 

Teach me the secret of thy innocence. 

That in simplicity I may grow wise, 
Asking from Ai-t no other recompense 

Than the approval of her own just eyes; 
So may I rise to some fair eminence. 

Though less than thine, cousin of the skies. 

Like Keats, whom he often suggests, Cawein w^as a worship- 
per of pure Beauty, believing that ''beauty born of beauty — 
that remains." His verse is shot through with threads of richest 
color; the imagery, the warmth, the luxuriance, the music of 



304 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

his lines delight the senses; at times there is an almost cloying 
sweetness. Through its profusion of coloring his verse abounds 
in sensuous charm. 

Other Later Poets. — The passing tribute of a line must be 

paid to Samuel Mintern Peck (1854 ) of Alabama, 

author of ''A Southern Girl" and the popular "Grapevine 

Swing"; William Hamilton Hayne (1856- ) of Georgia, 

in whom the lyric gift of an illustrious father has been perpet- 
uated; Robert Burns Wilson (1850-1916) of Kentucky, 
author of many pleasing lyrics; Walter Malone (1866- 
1915) of Tennessee, author of ''October in Tennessee," ''Op- 
portunity," "A Florida Nocturne," and other poems; Robert 

LovEMAN (1864^ ) of Georgia, who has published several 

volumes of verse; Henry Jerome Stockard (1858-1914) and 

Benjamin Sledd (1864- ) of North Carolina, each of 

whom has written (the one in "Fugitive Lines" and the 
other in "From Cliff and Scaur" and "The Watchers of the 
Hearth") lyric poems of rare grace and sweetness; and Mrs. 
Olive Tilford Dargan of Kentucky, who has written 
several poetic dramas of merit, besides m^uch lyric verse of fine 
quality. 

ORATORY 

The older South was a land of orators. Mention has already 
been made of the conditions that encouraged oratory — the 
fondness for political debate, the general aspiration toward 
statesmanship, the ambition for public leadership. Out of 
these conditions sprang a race of orators who have not been 
excelled in American history. Naturally, with the passing of 
vital interest in the questions which they debated, their 
speeches have correspondingly suffered; but whether we read 
them to-day or not, the tradition of them is a glorious one and 
should be perpetuated. A few of these old orations, dealing 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 305 

with fundamental propositions and phrased in artistic language, 
belong to literature; they permanently appeal to the emotions 
and the imagination. Some of them are more ornate than the 
simpler tatste of our time approves; some of them, indeed, 
seem to us stilted and bombastic; but that was the sort of 
pubhc speaking in fashion in those days, when ''sound and fury" 
on the rostrum signified more than it does to-day. In reading 
these speeches, we must remember that no oration can properly 
be judged without some knowledge of the occasion of its de- 
livery, the temper of the times, and the personality of the orator. 

Some account was given in a preceding chapter of South- 
ern orators in the Revolutionary period, of whom Patrick 
Henry was chief. The next great occasion for oratory was 
the slavery agitation in the years from about 1830 to 1860. 
After the war, the rebuilding of the stricken South and the 
reconciliation of the sections furnished themes for oratory — 
the birth of the ''New South." The last decade of the nine- 
teenth century saw a wonderful industrial development in 
the South, attempts at racial adjustment, and a greater interest 
in national problems; along with these movements began a 
remarkable educational revival. Contemporary public speak- 
ing is accordingly cpncerned with one or more of these subjects. 

Out of a long list of Southern orators frohi John Randolph 
of Roanoke to Henry Grady, only three have been chosen for 
such brief treatment as the limits of this work impose — John 
C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Henry Grad}^ Each is repre- 
sentative, it will be observed, of an attitude of mind and of a 
phase of current political thought' — conservative, concihatory, 
liberal. There were other noteworthy orators — John Randolph 
of Roanoke; Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, who deba^ted 
with Webster; Thomas H. Benton of Missouri; Jefferson 
Davis of Mississippi; Alexander H. Stephens and Robert 
Toombs of Georgia. Most of these are remembered as states- 
men rather than as orators, and their speeches are not widely 
read to-day; this is true, indeed, of Calhoun and Clay; but the 



306 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



traditional renown of these two orators is so great that the 
literary historian must needs take their speeches into account. 
John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850).— John C. Calhoun was 
born in South Carolina, educated at Yale, studied law, entered 
politics, and served in the legislature, as representative in 
Congress, as Senator, as Vice-President, as Secretary of War, 
and as Secretary of State. He was an active participant in 
the stirring senatorial debates between 1830 and 1850, defend- 
ing State rights as a strict constructionist of the Constitution. 

He loved the Union, and be- 
heved that only through his 
interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion could it be kept intact and 
the rights of the South at the 
same time secured. *'He un- 
dertook," says Professor Trent, 
"to do more than was humanly 
possible; but his efforts were so 
herculean that they demand 
admiration . ' ' Calhoun' s great- 
est speeches were in defense of 
his views on State rights; that 
delivered in 1833 on "The 
Force Bill and Nullification" 
is one of his ablest. In his 
later years he wrote "A Dis- 
course on the Constitution and Government of the United 
States," which is regarded as one of his subtlest pieces of 
political logic. 




JOHN C. CALHOUN 



Henry Ciay (1777-1852). — Henry Clay was born in Hanover 
county, Virginia, studied law at an early age, went west to 
Kentucky in 1797 and settled at Lexington, which was his home 
for the rest of his life. He soon came into prominence in pol- 
itics, was appointed to fill out an unexpired term in the United 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



307 



States Senate, was elected to the lower house of Congress, 
of which he was made speaker, and was then sent to the Senate, 
where except for a term as Secretary of State under Adams 
and a brief period or two, he remained until his death. Notable 
speeches of Clay are the following: ''On the Greek Revolution" 
(1824), ''Defense of the American System" (1832), "Com- 
promise of 1850," and the "Farewell to the Senate." The 
famous compromise speech of 1850 closes with an impassioned 
plea for the Union; his two great colleagues, Webster and 
Calhoun, also ardently wished for its preservation; fortunately, 
no one of the mighty "triumvirate" lived to see it broken. 



Henry Woodfin Grady (1850-1889).— Henry W. Grady was 
born in Athens, Georgia; he was educated at the University 
of Georgia and the University of Virginia; at the time of his 

death he was editor and 

part owner of the Atlanta 
Constitution. Through 
his editorials and his 
public addresses he did 
much to bring about a 
better understanding be- 
tween the North and the 
South; belonging to a 
newer generation, loyal 
to the old and eager for 
a completer national re- 
union, he was a fitting 
spokesman for the New 
South. The speech that 
first brought him wide 
fame was "The New South," delivered before the New Eng- 
land Society of New York in 1886. This established his rep- 
utation; he had become the prophet of a new era and a power 
fo^r unification in the nation; he had won the title of "national 




HENRY W. GRADY 



308 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

pacificator." Back at home he had already shown himself 
the pubhc-spirited citizen, promoting by word and deed 
measures for the advancement of his city, state, and the South. 
He was accordingly in demand in various parts of the country. 
At the Dallas, Texas, fair in 1888 he made a notable address 
on 'The South and her Problems"; in Boston his last great 
speech was heard in December, 1889. So fine a spirit for pub- 
lic service, so eloquent an exponent of modern progress, so just 
an interpreter of the old order to the new, had not before ap- 
peared. On him seemed to have fallen the mantle of the ''men 
of the mighty days." ''He was," says Watterson, "the one pub- 
licist of the New South, who, inheriting the spirit of the old, 
yet had realized the present and looked into the future with the 
eyes of a statesman and the heart of a prophet." 

PROSE FICTION 

In the realm of story-telling. Southern writers have made 
and are making a significant contribution to American litera- 
ture. This body of prose fiction is large, varied, and of excel- 
lent quality; the later group of story-tellers in particular have 
shown remarkable industry and decided originality. For the 
sake of convenience. Southern prose fiction may be divided 
into the following classes according to the subject matter of 
the stories: (1) The older romances of war, adventure, and 
colonial life, by Simms, Kennedy, and Cooke; (2) the Creoles of 
Louisiana, by Cable; (3) Negro folklore, by Harris and others; 
(4) The Tennessee mountaineer, by Miss Murfree (''Charles 
Egbert Craddock"); (5) the Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, 
by Allen; (6) Old Virginia, by Page and others. This classifi- 
cation is of course neither exhaustive nor clear-cut, but it will 
serve in a general way to indicate the main themes. The 
older writers, as elsewhere in America, were essentially romantic 
in the treatment of their material, while the later novelists are 



THE JSOUTHERN WRITERS 309 

naturally more realistic. The difference between the old and 
the new fashion in fiction — the change from the romance of 
sentiment and adventure to the novel of reahsm — is expressed 
in the resigned remark of John Esten Cooke, shortly before his 
death, about the new school of realists: ''They see, as I do, 
that fiction should faithfully reflect life, and they obey the law, 
while I was bom too soon, and am now too old to learn my 
trade anew." 

Representatives of the several classes of Southern fiction 
may now be taken up in the order outlined above. Of the 
earlier group William Gilmore Simms is the most important; 
then come John Pendleton Kennedy and John Esten Cooke. 

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-1870) 

His Life. — William Gilmore Simms was born in Charleston, South 
Carolina, April 17, 1806. His mother died when he was scarcely two 
years old, and his father, a merchant, through despondency at the death 
of his wife and two of his children and at business failures, left Charleston 
for a wandering life of adventure westward. The little boy was taken 
care of by his grandmother, who knew a great many stories of war and 
Indian fighting, with which she kindled the imagination of her precocious 
grandson. After five or six years at the indifferent public schools of the 
city, he was at the age of twelve apprenticed to a druggist; but clerking 
in a drug store did not appeal to the imaginative youth, and at eighteen 
he began the study of law. Shortly after this he made a visit to his 
father in the wilds of JMississippi, and on this journey had several perilous 
adventures and visited two tribes of Indians. Returning to Charleston, 
he married (1826), and the next year was admitted to the bar. After 
a year's practice, however, he definitely gave up law for literature, 
having meanwhile written some poetry and read widely in Scott and 
Byron and other English authors. 

Simms's first editorial venture was not successful; his wife died in 
1832; aristocratic Charleston gave the young poet scanty recognition. 
Somewhat discouraged, he went to Hingham, Massachusetts, and there 
published his first long poetic effort, Atalantis, a Story of the Sea; he also 
met William CuUen Bryant, who remained his friend the rest of his life. 
After a few months in the North, he returned to South Carolina, and in 
1833 published his first prose romance, Martin Faber, which was followed 



310 



• AMERICAN LITERATURE 



the next year by another. In 1835 The Yemassee appeared, and Simihs's 
fame was established; his romances were exceedingly popular. That 
same year he married again; and thenceforth he made his home for most 
of the year at his father-in-law's country place, Woodlands, in Barnwell 
county. South Carolina. At Woodlands he did the best literary work 
of his life, and there he entertained his literary friends from the North 
and South in hospitable style. In 
Charleston he spent a few months 
each year, for he owned a house in 
the city. About him there a small 
coterie of congenial spirits gath- 
ered, most of them younger men 
who looked up to him as a sort of 
literary dictator; and indeed he 
had some of the characteristics of 
old Samuel Johnson presiding at 
''the club." 

Simms was editor of one short- 
lived periodical after another, the 
most influential of which was the 
Southern Quarterly Review, and he 
contributed to others. He was 
indeed the first Southern author 
to make literature his main voca- 
tion; he made his living from his 
novels and not from magazine ar- 
ticles, for which the poverty- 
stricken proprietors promised 
more than they paid. Besides 
these literary labors, Simms dab- 
bled in politics, but went no higher 
than the state legislature. The 
war came on, and the novelist suf- 
fered; his home, Woodlands, was 
partly burned in 1862, and entirely 
destroyed in 1865, including his 
fine library. He lost his wife in 

1863, and a number of his children had died through the years; so that 
when the war was over, he was a saddened and broken old man. He 
felt, too, that his native city had never smiled on his labors; her 
aristocratic indifference was galling to him. Still, he took up bravely 
the burden of life and heroically worked at jnore romances; but the 




MONUMENT TO SIMMS 
Charleston, S. C. 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 311 

times had changed, and the public wanted another kind of fiction. 
Death overtook him at his task, June 11, 1870, the victim of overwork. 
He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, "Charleston. 

His Personality. — Simms was a man of vigorous, buoyant, 
sanguine temperament. He had a big heart and such abound- 
ing vitality that he drew around him many admirers and an 
inner circle of friends. He appealed to young men by his 
physical and moral energy and by his intellectual restlessness; 
he was essentially a masculine nature; he had the creative 
force without the delicate sensibilities and the patience of a 
great artist. He was capable of an immense amount of work, 
and his versatihty was astonishing. In spite of his dogmatic 
manner, he was really a lovable man. He must have impressed 
those who knew him well both by his strength of character and 
his nobility of nature; he was strong in opinions and warm of 
heart, and to struggUng young men and the deserving poor his 
sympathy went out in helpful service. As hospitable host at 
Woodlands and as center of his literary group at Charleston, 
to which Hayne and Timrod belonged, he is typical of the 
intellectual culture of the old South, ^'self-made man" though 
he was. To his friend, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Simms' s whole 
life seemed noble ' 'because of the ^grit,' the perseverance, the 
indomitable energy which it displayed"^ imder adverse con- 
ditions. 

His Works. — Simms began his literary career by writing 
verse, and throughout life he continued to write it; his poetry 
fills a good many volumes, but the one entitled Atalantis: a 
Story of the Sea (1832), is perhaps the most ambitious. One 
comes across passages of high merit in many of these poems, 
but as a whole they are not noteworthy, for Simms was not a 
genuine poet. His other works — dramas, criticism, biography, 
history, fiction — ^number over fifty volumes. It is only his 
fiction, however, that has given him permanent fame. His 
best romances are those which deal with colonial and Revolu- 

^Trent's Life of William Gilmore Simms, p. 322. 



812 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



tionary days in South Carolina: The Yemassee (1835), a story 
of Indian fights in earher colonial times; The Partisan (1835), 
Mellichampe (1836), and Katherine Walton (1851), belonging 
to the years of the Revolution; The Foray ers (1855), Eutaw 
(1856), The Scout (pubhshed in 1841 as The Kinsmen, but 
renamed The Scout in 1854), and Woodcraft (1852), in which 
the scenes are laid in the last years of the eighteenth century. 



^x. :-j:'> 



f 




WOODLANDS 
Home of Simms, Barnwell Co., S. C. 



To these might be added The Wigwam and Cabin, short stories 
of pioneer and Indian life. Of all these The Yemassee is the 
most popular. 

The Yemassee is a story of the Indian uprising in South 
Carolina in the early eighteenth century. The Yemassee 
Indians, who had grown hostile to the English, planned a 
general attack on the settlers in the southeastern part of the 
colony. Their chief, Sanutee, ralhed the tribe and with the 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 313 

help of the Spanish and certain pirates led the attack. After 
burning and plundering many dwellings, the Indians con- 
centrated their forces on the blockhouse; the besieged, well- 
nigh exhausted after their long defense, were finally relieved 
by a party under the brave and gallant Governor Craven, who 
figures in the story as Captain Gabriel Harrison. There are 
many thrilling episodes — the capture of Harrison and his 
release from the Indian prison by Matiwan, the friendly wife 
of the chief, the charming of Bess Matthews by the rattle- 
snake, the rescue of the maiden from the pirate, the weird 
doom of the luckless young Indian Occonestoga; and there is 
the pleasing love-story of Bess and Harrison. The Indian 
chief is a striking figure, while the Indian woman Matiwan is 
the noblest of her kind in the romances of the forest. The 
account of the death of Occonestoga is a powerful piece of 
writing, and the attack on the blockhouse is told with fine 
cuKiulative effect. The action, despite certain tedious stretches 
of conventional comment by lesser characters, is well sustained. 
This and the other romances of Indian adventure, together 
with the stories of Revolutionary times in the South, seem 
likely to keep Simms's name alive in coming generations. 
They treat of an important period of Southern history and 
they were written by a man who had an enthusiastic interest 
in his subject. He was a good story-teller, but he was a hasty 
writer, often careless in his Enghsh and in his plot-structure. 
These defects are also found in Cooper, with whom Simms 
is frequently compared. There can be no doubt that Simms 
profited by his reading of Cooper and Scott and that in certain 
instances, indeed, he is, as Professor Trent remarks, following 
them afar off — using the tricks of the trade, such as the pro- 
longed suspense, the appearance of the rescuer in the nick of 
time, the swoonings, the dull despair, the hidden paths, the 
tortures, the final triumph. But he was not an imitator; he 
has his own distinctive merits. His stories move along more 
rapidly than Cooper's, and his Indians are more real, though 



314 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

he has not created either a Leatherstocking or a Chingachgook. 
His women are truer to Hfe than Cooper's pale, languishing, 
ineffectual ^'females"; Simms's women not only fight on 
occasion, but they show in general more spirit and more of the 
qualities of genuine .comradeship. 

What Cooper did for his section, Simms did for the Soutli. 
With broader culture and more sentiment, ho had less of genius 
than his older Northern contemporary; but one might well 
put The Yemassee and The Partisan by the side of The Last of 
the Mohicans and The Spy as faithful pictures of interesting 
periods of American history. In reproducing for later genera- 
tions the romance of the Indian-peopled woods, Simms not 
only rendered notable service to our literature, but to local 
history as well. Those who wish to know the spirit of those 
vanished times, when the early nation-builders felled the 
forests and pushed back the savage-haunted frontier, will 
find it in his books. Young people will continue to read them 
for the thrilling encounters, the '^hairbreadth escapes in the 
imminent deadly breach, '^ and the silvery thread of love that 
winds through the dark and blood-stained web of the story; 
older men and women, who would revive the imaginative 
freshness of their youth, will turn again these pages in which 
are told the happenings of more primitive days, before the 
coming of the complex modem novel with its vexing problems. 

John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870). — John Pendleton 
Kennedy was born in Baltimore, educated in that city, studied 
law, fought in the War of 1812, served in the Maryland legisla- 
ture, was for two terms a member of Congress, Secretary of 
the Navy under Fillmore, and one of the founders and trustees 
of the Peabody Institute of his native city. He died in New- 
port, Rhode Island, in 1870. In addition to the activities just 
mentioned, Kennedy was connected with several magazines 
and helped to promote the expeditions of Commodore Perry 
and Dr. Kane. As is true of many other writers, he loved 
literature more than the law and gave much time and energy 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



315 



to the promotion of letters. He will doubtless be remembered 
for his generous encouragement of Poe as a struggling author 
in* Baltimore, even when his own books are no longer widely 
read. He also had a brief association with another great 
writer, Thackeray, whom he met in England. Thackeray 
liked Kennedy and his stories of old Southern life, and asked 
him to write a chapter for his novel. The Virginians; the fourth 
chapter of the second volume of that book is said to have been 

written by Kennedy, but this 
is not certain. At any rate, 
the localities therein described 
were quite familiar to him. 

Kennedy's three stories are 
Swallow Barn (1832), a romance 
of old Virginia; Horse-Shoe Robin- 
son (1835), a Revolutionary 
story; and Rob of the Bowl (1838), 
a romance of colonial Mary- 
land. Of these the first two have 
come to be regarded as the best. 
Swallow Barn is a story of an 
old Virginia home on the James 
River in the early years of the 
nineteenth century. Here the 
lord of the manor, country gen- 
tleman and justice of the peace, dispenses a lavish hospi- 
tahty, keeps fine horses and dogs, has a big retinue of ser- 
vants, talks politics, and reads standard literature. It is 
hardly necessary to remark that this literature is of the 
eighteenth-century English type. Addison, Steele, and Field- 
ing are certainly in the library; and this Southern country 
'squire is a sort of Sir Roger de Coverley. Swallow Barn 
is a delightful picture of ante-bellum plantation life. Horse- 
Shoe Robinson is a romance of the Revolution in the South, 
ia which the hero of the story, personally known to Kennedy, 




JOHN P. KENNEDY 



316 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



figures in many thrilling incidents. An agreeable love-story, 
with its ups and downs, its faithful and resourceful heroine 
and her impeded lover, flavors the war narrative with gentler 
sentiment. The book ends T\dth a description of the battle 
of King's Mountain, in which the threads of the story are 
dramatically brought together, forming an effective climax. 
Horse-Shoe Robinson is certainly one of the best romances of 
the Revolution in American literature. Among the other 
waitings of Kennedy the best is probably his Life of William 
Wirt (1849). 

John Esten Cooke (1830-1886).— John Esten Cooke was 
born at Winchester, Virginia, 
spent some years in Richmond, 
studied law with his father, a 
distinguished jurist, but soon 
gave himself to Hterature. He 
entered the Confederate army, 
served under Stuart as captain 
in the cavalry, and was in most 
of the battles fought by the army 
of Northern Virginia. When the 
war was over, he returned to 
Hterature and the quiet life he 
greatly loved. He was not the 
only member of the family with 
hterary gifts, for his brother, 
Philip Pendleton Cooke WTote ro- 
mances and at least one famous 
poem, already mentioned, 'Flor- 
ence Vane." The career of John Esten Cooke was an honor- 
able one and his devotion to letters singularly steadfast. 

His romances fall into two groups — those on Colonial and 
Revolutionary times and those relating to the great conflict 
of 1861-'65. To the first group belong The Virginia Come- 
dians (1854), Leatherstockings and Silk (1854), The Youth 




JOHN ESTEN COOKE 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 317 

of Jefferson (1854), The Last of the Fcyresters (1856), Fairfax 
(1868), Doctor Vandyke (1872), Henry St, John (1859), and 
Canolles (1877); and to the second, Surry of Eaglets Nest 
(1866), Mohun (1868), Hilt to Hilt (1868), and others. Of all 
these works The Virginia Comedians is generally considered 
the best; it still retains among lovers of old-fashioned books 
a deserved popularity. The scene of the story is Wilhamsburg 
— the colonial capital of Virginia — and its vicinity in the years 
immediately preceding the Revolution. The central figures 
are Champ Efiingham, scion of Cavaher stock, who lives at 
Effingham Hall, and Beatrice Hallam, the beautiful young 
actress of 'The Virginia Comedians," then pla^ong at the 
Httle colonial capital. Ardent love-making, duels, balls and 
high-bom dames, chariots and brocades, parsons and 'squires, 
and at last ever^^body happily mated with proper social sanc- 
tion — so runs this romance of ''the good old times.'' The 
ladies are "dazzlingly beautiful" and the men unimpeachably 
brave. The book is full of action and bright talk, but the plot 
is not well sustained throughout, though the story is an interest- 
ing picture of what "the golden days" are popularly supposed 
to have been. One American critic calls it "the best novel 
written in the Southern States before the Civil War." ^ 

The war stories of Cooke — Surry of Eagle's Nest, Hilt to 
Hilt, and the rest, — abound in stirring action, relieved by 
miniature sketches of Confederate heroes who played a con- 
spicuous part in the cause which the author served with so 
much distinction. These works were rapidly written in a 
more highly-colored style than this generation likes, but they 
are the best war-stories of the time, and will doubtless con- 
tinue to be read by young people, to whom the dramatic element 
of the mighty struggle specially appeals. Graphic portraits of 
great military/ captains, as drawn by one who knew them in 
action, are valuable. 



^Charles F. Richardson: American Literature, vol. II, p. 401. 



318 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Belonging to this older group of writers who have done much 
to preserve for the younger generation the atmosphere of the 
ante-bellum South is George W. Bagby (1828-1883), of Rich- 
mond, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Dr. Bagby 
was a humorist who wrote under the penname of '^Mozis 
Addums." His sketches of provincial scenes and characters 
are diverting; one production of his, ''Jud Brownin's Account of 
Rubinstein's Playing," or ''How Ruby Played," has become a 
classic piece of American humor. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE (1844- 



-) 



His Life. — George W. Cable was bom in New Orleans, Louisiana, 
October 12, 1844, of Virginia descent. At fourteen he left school to 
become a clerk in a mer- 
cantile house; this was 
made necessary by his 
father's business failure a 
number of years before. 
He entered the Confed- 
erate army in 1863 and 
seived two years in a Mis- 
sissippi regiment. After 
the war he was for some 
years a surveyor, but gave 
up that vocation to take a 
position on the New 
Orleans Picayune, for 
which he had already been 
writing sketches. News- 
paper reporting was, how- 
ever, not entirely to his 
taste, and he next tried 
keeping accounts in a cot- 
ton factor's office. At night 
and early in the morning he found time to write stories for Scribners 
Magazine, In 1879 he decided to devote himself to literature as a 
profession. 

That same year he collected his stories and published them under 
the title of Old Creole Days. These sketches had a wide reading, 
and their popularity encouraged Cable to attempt a series of novels 
on old Creole life in New Orleans, which will presently be noticed. 




GEORGE W. CABLE 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 319 

Locally these books were criticised in regard to the faithfulness of 
their portrayal of scenes and persons, but elsewhere they won high 
praise for freshness of theme and fine literary quality. In 1885 
Cable went to Connecticut to live, and the following year re- 
moved to Noi-thampton, Massachusetts, his present home. During 
the next five or six years he wrote several books on the negro ques- 
tion and kindred subjects which gave offense to many in his native 
region. Becoming interested in philanthropic enterprises, he has 
given much time and energy to the promotion of societies for 
social betterment; in 1887 he founded the Home Culture Clubs. In 
addition to the writing of books, he has lectured on literary and 
philanthropic subjects and has given readings from his own stories. 
His interest in moral and religious questions has always been deep. 
After a long silence, he published from 1894 to within recent years 
several novels which have beep, widely read. 

His Works. — The works which made Cable famous and 
which will in all likelihood be longest read are those that deal 
with Creole life in old New Orleans. Although he has written 
other novels of merit, it will be best for our present purpose to 
enumerate only those written between 1879 and 1888: Old 
Creole Days (1879), The Grandissimes (1880), Madame Del- 
phine (1881), Dr. Sevier (1883), and Bonaventure (1888). 

Old Creole Days is a collection of short stories on that quaint 
and fascinating people in Louisiana who gave to that part of 
the South a hundred years ago a peculiar charm. Much of 
the picturesque setting which lends an atmosphere of enchant- 
ment to these stories has of course vanished from the New 
Orleans of to-day, but the poetic dialect, the broken English, 
and the engaging manners of the Creoles of the older time 
are preserved in these miniature romances. It makes little 
difference whether it is all true to life or not; in literature one 
looks for the spirit of a time and place, not for historical re- 
curacy. These stories reconstruct for the imagination that 
rich and colored Southern life, with its balmy airs, its nights 
full of the sweetness of jasmine flowers and orange blossoms, 
its old-world architecture, its dreamy atmosphere as of a 
western land of lotus-eaters, its chivalry of high-souled men 
and beautiful women. The men and women in Old Creole 



320 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Days move about in a sort of detached world, where sentiment 
is more than common sense and where human life takes on the 
grace and mild excitement of refined drama. The characters 
live in the open, and instinctively they are actors; sometimes 
it is a comedy, sometimes it is a tragedy, oftener it is gently 
serio-comic, and not without its moral lesson. 

The longest story in Old Creole Days is ' 'Madame Delphine" 
(originally published as a separate volume). The central 
figure is the quadroon mother who for the sake of her beautiful 
daughter sacrifices herself; but more impressive than all the 
other figures in this moving little drama is Pere Jerome, the 
priest whose sermons in the little old cathedral and whose 
ministrations in his parish had made him the friend and helper 
of rich and poor. Descriptive passages of singular beauty add 
poetic charm to the setting. Here is one: 

It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the 
sterner energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in 
bivouac, and the fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, sUp 
their fetters and escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering 
bush and sweet- smelUng tree, and every stretch of lonely, half- 
lighted walk, by the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now 
and then, and was still again, as if the breez-es lifted their expectant 
pinions and lowered them once more, awaiting the rising of the 
moon in a silence which fell upon the fields, the roads, the gardens, 
the walls, and the suburban and half-suburban streets, like a 
pause in worship. And anon she rose ... In the dark boughs 
of a large orange-tree a mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes 
of his all-night song. It might have been only the nearness of the 
songster that attracted the passer's attention, but he paused and 
looked up. And then he remarked something more — that the air 
where he had stopped was filled with the overpowering sweetness 
of the night-jasmine. 

In this volume of short stories perhaps there is no more 
popular one than 'Tosson Jone." It is an altogether delight- 
ful account of how a big, simple-hearted West Florida parson 
went to New Orleans and fell into the hands of gamblers, but 
*'by the light of the Christian virtue that shone from him even 
in his great fall" brought about, without knowing it, the return 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 321 

to an honest life of those who had led him into temptation. 
The little incident is told with dehcious humor and exquisite 
coloring. Not man}^ startling things happen in these stories 
or sketches; there is a hint here, a suggestion there, a glimpse 
into character, some conversation, and at the end an artistically 
arranged climax of a minor kind, revealing a new phase of 
character. ''Madame Delicieuse," for instance, is the story 
of the influence of a charming young widow on a proud old 
military man in reconciling him to his son, a young scientist 
of growing reputation from whom he was estranged ; the romance 
of the situation is revealed at the end: 

The sky was blue, the air was soft and balmy, and on the sweet 
south breeze, to which the old General bared his grateful brow, 
floated a ravishing odor of — 

"Ah! what is it?" the veteran asked of the younger pair, seeing 
the little aunt glance at them with a playful smile. 

Madame Delicieuse. for almost the first time in her life, and Dr. 
Mossy for the thousandth — blushed. 

It was the odor of orange blossoms. 

Of the novels The Grandissimes is usually considered the best. 
The center of this elaborate and powerful story is Honore 
Grandissime, against w^hose progressive ideas and plans the rest 
of the family of the Grandissimes contend, only to be borne 
along by the far-seeing hero to the prosperity of which he has 
all along had a prophetic vision. About him various types of 
people move — the reactionary, the feline quadroon beauty, the 
shrewish negress, the former African chief fighting against 
enslavement, the Congo woman, and the two winsome Creoles. 
Realism is mingled with idealism, sentiment with plain prosaic 
fact, subtle humor with delicate pathos. In this book as in 
the others, whether the writer is dealing with aristocrats of 
antique lineage or with peasants, there is a shining thread of 
idealism and ethical significance. 

It is in the short stories, however, that Cable's art is seen at 
its best; they are his masterpieces. One may turn again and 
again to Old Creole Days and find refreshment in their setting, 



322 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

dramatic situations, and general refinement of tone. Not 
elsewhere has the charm of Creole civilization been so well 
caught and preserved. In Cable's books we accordingly find 
a real contribution to American literature. The local color of a 
picturesque section of old American life — the streets and 
buildings of historic New Orleans, the forests, bayous, and 
streams of Louisiana, — will live in these artistic romances. 

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS (1848-1908) 

His Life.— Joel Chandler Harris was bom at Eatonton, Georgia, 
December 8, 1848. After attending for a while the local schools, 
he was at the age of twelve employed on a country newspaper as 
type-setter; thus he learned the printer's trade. For this paper he 
also contributed his first articles. In the home of his employer he 
found to his delight a large library, of which he made steady use. 
After the war he did newspaper work in Macon, Georgia, and in 
New Orleans; then he edited The Advertiser of Forsyth, Georgia, 
and also practised law for a time there. Between 1871 and 
1876 he was on the staff of the Savannah Daily News. In 1876 he 
became one of the editors of the Atlanta Constitution, and remained 
with that paper for a quarter of a century. Through his contri- 
butions to its columns be became famous. 

From his childhood Harris, who laughingly called himself "an 
uncultured Georgia cracker," was a lover of old plantation life; he 
hunted possums, coons, and rabbits, and listened to the darkies as 
they played the banjo and sang their melodies and told their animal 
stories. Later on, when he began to record these fables, his know- 
ledge of negro character stood him in good stead. He was able to 
interest the negroes in a story and draw from them in turn stories 
which a less sympathetic person would have failed to get, for the 
old-time darky was slow to tell his folktales to strangers. Harris 
had a way of winning their confidence; and so he gathered an 
immense fund of stories. 

Personally, Joel Chandler Harris was shy and reticent except to 
those who had common interests and feelings. To such visitors at 
his suburban home. Wren's Nest, he talked freely with unfailing 
humor and good nature. Humor and sympathy were predominant 
traits. Simple tastes and a delight in sincere people and unaffected 
manners marked his daily life: "I like people," said he, "who are what 
they are, and are not all the time trying to be what somebody else 
has been." He was happiest in his little rural retreat, surrounded 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 323 

by his family, his bird friends, his animal pets, and tending with 
affectionate care his rose-garden. About a year before his death in 
1908, he founded Uncle Remus's Magazine. 

The **Uiicle Remus" Stories. — The writings of Joel Chandler 
Harris naturally fall into two classes — those on negro folklore 
and those on the Georgia "crackers'^ and "moonshiners." In 
this brief sketch it will make for unity and general effectiveness 
to confine the discussion to the first class, the "Uncle Remus" 
stories, which have brought the author enduring fame. The 
volumes of this group are: Uncle Remus, His Songs and His 
Sayings (ISSO), Nights with Uncle Remus (ISSS), Uncle Remus 
and His Friends (1892), and a later volume, Told by Uncle 
Remus (1905), in which the old negro is represented as telling 
his stories to the son of the original "little boy" in the first 
tales. 

In the first volume of stories, collected from the issues of the 
Atlanta Constitution for several years, Harris revealed an 
unexpected wealth of negro folklore. It is true that Irwin 
Russell had already discovered this realm, but it remained for 
his Georgia contemporary to bring it into universal recognition. 
Uncle Remus is the unique creation of Joel Chandler Harris. 
This venerable personage has an astonishingly large fund of 
information about the sayings and doings of Brer Rabbit, 
Brer Fox, Brer B'ar, Brer Wolf, and the rest of the human 
animals. Uncle Remus also knows a lot about child nature: 
he knows how to arouse the little boy's curiosity at the right 
moment and how to quell his fears, for he is keenly conscious 
of every turn of thought and feeling in his hearer. And when 
the story wanders too far afield among the animals, he knows 
how to bring it back into human regions at the right moment 
by mentioning "Miss Sally" or "Miss Meadows en de gals." 
The scene in the negro cabin in the flickering firelight, the 
spectacled old darky, "Aunt Tempy," the eager little listener 
upon whose intent features the shadows and lights alternately 
play, while to the fancy that invisible world, wherein Brer 
Rabbit and Brer Fox contend for the mastery, is the real one 



324 



AMEmCAN LITERATURE 



after all, — these pictures live in the memory of those who read 

the Uncle Remus stories; and to those who perchance have had 

the good fortune in their childhood to hear from dusky lips 

the weird tales, the reading of them here brings an enchanting 

renewal of ''the dear remembered days." 

Uncle Remus is not only a type, but an individual; he is the 

real negro philosopher and 

^_5^^^Tv^ humorist of the plantation, 

%^i'^''^\ not an idealized one. His pro- 
's- XX* - 1 * J ^ 

^^^' totype was an old man on the 
Turner plantation in Georgia 
where Harris spent his early 
years and whose stories he had 
heard. There had been 
numerous darky songs and a 
few noteworthy negro charac- 
ters in literature before Uncle 
Remus, but most of these, as 
Professor C. Alphonso Smith 
well points out,^ had been 
more typical than individual; 
that is, they had portrayed 
the negro as a representative 
of his class in his relation to 
the white man and not as a 
BRER FOX AND BRER RABBIT^ distiuct personality voicing his 

From an original illustration in Uncle Remus SCntimentS iu his OWn Cabiu. 

These animal legends he had 
inherited from a remote, twilight past, and when he talked 
them out himself he stood for his race with its accumula- 
tion of primitive lore. In the mouth of Uncle Remus, as 
Harris puts him before us, we have the genuine folktales 
of the negro; these stories form therefore a unique and ex- 
ceedingly valuable contribution to American literature. Uncle 

^Die Amerikanische Literatur, pp. 296 et seq. 
-Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. 




THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 325 

Remus is one of the few distinctly original characters of 
our national literature; and as the old plantation life recedes 
more and more into the past, these dialect folktales of which 
he is the central figure will prove a valuable heritage to a 
newer time from a richly picturesque period of Southern 
history. Interesting as they are simply for the story and the 
setting, they have, when looked at more deeply, something of 
moral significance not unlil^e that of simple allegory. This is 
confirmed by the author's remark that it is not difficult to find 
out why the negro ' 'selects as his hero the weakest and most 
harmless of animals, and brings him out victorious in contests 
with the bear, the wolf, and the fox: it is not virtue that 
triumphs, but helplessness; it is not malice, but mis- 
chievousness." 

Irwin Russell (1853-1879). — Irwin Russell was born in Port 
Gibson, Mississippi, educated at St. Louis University, studied 
law and began the practice of it in Mississippi; but being a 
man of versatile talents and erratic disposition, he neglected 
the law for newspaper w^ork, music, and literature. His short, 
pathetic life of twenty-six years ended in New Orleans, where 
he was connected with The Times. Russell earlj'' perceived the 
hterary possibilities of the negro dialect, and he is chiefly 
remembered to-day as the pioneer in that sort of wTiting, the 
immediate predecessor of Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas 
Nelson Page. His best-know^n poem is ''Christmas Night in 
the Quarters" (1878). Another popular piece is "Nebuchad- 
nezzar," in which are related a darky's struggles with a mule. 
Russell was an ardent admirer of Robert Burns and could write 
very like the Scotch poet. While he wrote a few serious poems 
of merit, it is his delineation of negro character that will preserve 
his name; in this he opened a rich new field. Russell was a 
clever caricaturist and imitator, and was able to sketch faces 
and scenes with telling effect and to reproduce the styles of 
various poets. The slender volume of his poems was published 
in 1888. 



326 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



MARY NOAILLES MURFREE (1850- ) 

(Charles Egbert Craddock) 

Her Life. — Mary Noailles Murfree was bom near Murfreesboro, 
Tennessee, January 24, 1850, in the old house later celebrated in her 
novel, Where the Battle was Fought. She came of good North Caro- 
lina Revolutionary stock; her father vv^as a successful lawyer of 

Nashville. In that city and in 
Philadelphia she was educated. 
Being lame from her childhood, 
she could not take part in the 
usual outdoor sports; she there- 
fore turned to reading fiction for 
her recreation and fed her imagi- 
nation on the novels of Scott and 
George Eliot. For fifteen succes- 
sive summers the family spent 
several months in the mountains 
of East Tennessee, and thus Miss 
Murfree had abundant oppor- 
tunity to study the mountaineer 
at close range in his native fast- 
nesses. In the seventies she had 
begun writing stories for Apple- 
ton's Journal under the penname 
of "Charles Egbert Craddock" and 
by 1S78 she was contributing to 
the Atlantic Monthly. For a number of years after the war the Mur- 
free family lived in St. Louis, returning in 1890 to Murfreesboro, 
which has since been the novelist's home. 

Her Works. — The first volume of Miss Murfree's stories, 
In the Tennessee Mountains, appeared in 1884. This volume 
contains eight stories on the life and character of the Tennessee 
mountaineer — the feuds, the fights, the court sessions, the raids 
on the moonshiners, neighborhood dances, the love-makings, 
the lights and shadows of the daily round of an isolated people, 
shut in by everlasting barriers. There is the somber back- 
ground of the valley and the sentinel mountain, and over 
against them there is the belated Anglo-Saxon folk, as 
picturesque as the encompassing scenery of which they form 




MARY N. MURFREE 
(Charles Egbert Craddock) 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 327 

an integral part. Among them one may find a high sense of 
honor, despite their lawlessness and general fondness for 
settling disputes with rifles and pistols. Endurance and 
sacrifice are not infrequent virtues; from them spring cases of 
real heroism among this high-spirited people. 

In the story called ^'Drifting Down Lost Creek'' the heroine, 
Cynthia Ware, is a tragic figure in her patient sacrifice for her 
unfaithful lover, for whose release from prison she has labored. 
Somehow her disappointed life seemed to find its symbol in the 
loneliness of the mountain tinged with the fading splendors of 
an autumn sunset: 

The sun had gone down, but the light yet lingered. The evening 
star trembled above Pine Mountain. Massive and darkling it stood 
against the red west. How far, ah, how far, stretched that mellow 
crimson glow, all adown Lost Creek Valley, and over the vast moun- 
tain solitudes on either hand! Even the eastern ranges were rich 
with this legacy of the dead and gone day, and purple and splendid 
they lay beneath the rising moon. She looked at it with full and 
shining eyes. "I dunno how he kin make out ter furgit the mount- 
ings," she said; and then she went on, hearing the crisp leaves rus- 
tling beneath her tread. 

He might forget her, but how could he forget the mountains? 
At last her resignation triumphs, but not without that touch of 
fatalism which is a part of the mountaineer's religion: 

Sometimes, to be sure, it seems to her that the years of her life 
are like the floating leaves drifting down Lost Creek, valueless and 
purposeless, and vaguely vanishing in the mountains. Then she 
remembers that the sequestered subterranean current is charged 
with its own inscrutable imperative mission, and she ceases to ques- 
tion and regret, and bravely does the work nearest her hand, and 
has glimpses of its influence in the widening lives of others, and 
finds in these a placid content. 

That passage might have been written by George Eliot, so full 
is it of self-abnegation and the pathos of buried hopes. 

Throughout the stories there are touches that show keen 
insight into the habits and talk of the mountaineer; as, for 
instance, the pungent remarks of Old Mis' Cayce on the good 
old times at the settlement: 



328 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

"I 'member when I war a gal whisky war so cheap that up to the 
store at the settlemint they'd have a bucket set full o' whisky an' a 
gourd, free fur all comers, an' another bucket alongside with water 
ter season it. An' the way that thar water lasted war surprisin'; 
that it war!" 

The pithy comment of the old constable on Clem Sanders's 
spelling is interesting: 

"Sech spellin' as Clem Sanders kin do oughter be agin the law! 
It air agin every law o' spellin'. Clem ought to be hung a leetle fur 
each offense. It jes' fixes him in his criminal conduct agin the 
alphabet." 

Among the numerous novels that Miss Murfree has written, 
those on the mountain folk are the best: The Prophet of the 
Great Smoky Mountains (1885), In the Clouds (1886), Down the 
Ravine (1885), The Despot of Broomsedge Cove (1888), In the 
Stranger Peoples' Country (1891). She has written on other 
scenes and other people, but she has not delineated them with 
the same sure hand that depicted the life of the East Tennessee 
mountaineer. This hidden region she discovered for hterature, 
and therein lies her claim to lasting i^ecognition. Past these 
people, caught as it were in an eddy, the hurrying stream of 
civilization had swept on; they preserved much of the older 
speech, many of the older habits of thought. We call them 
primitive, but that is only a relative way of speaking: their 
dialect, though a»corrupt form, retains familiar old idioms and 
pronunciations; their songs and ballads are survivals of a 
transplanted English civilization of three centuries ago; these 
picturesque folk are ''our contemporary ancestors in the 
Southern mountains." 

JAMES LANE ALLEN (1849 ) 

His Life. — James Lane Allen was bom near Lexington, Kentucky, 
in 1849, and was brought up amid the scenes he afterward 
described in his stories. In 1872 he graduated at Transylvania Uni- 
versity, Lexington. For a number of years he taught school in 
Kentucky and Missouri, returning to his alma mater as instructor; 
be resigned there to become professor of Latin in Bethany College, 
West Virginia, holding that position two years (1882-'84). By this 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



329 



time he had resolved to make literature nis profession; he accord- 
ingly settled in New York, after living for a short time in Cincin- 
nati and Washington, in order to be near the periodicals for which 
he had begun to contribute. His first productions were essays and 
sketches, and then he passed to story-writing for Harper's Magazine 
and the Century. His stories were idealized narratives and descrip- 
tions of life in the Blue- Grass Region of Kentucky, which he knew 
so intimately. They were followed by several novels which estab- 
lished his reputation as one of the foremost contemporary writers 
of prose fiction. 

His Works. — Allen's first volume of stories, Flute and Violin j 
was published in 1891; then followed A Kentucky Cardinal 

(1894), Aftermath (1895), 
A Summer in A ready 
(1896); The Choir Invisi- 
ble (1897), The Reign of 
Law (1900), The Mettle of 
the Pasture (1903), and 
The Bride of the Mistletoe 
(1909). The short stories 





Bradley— Georgetown, Ky. 
SCENE IN THE BLUE-GRASS REGION 
Kentucky 

in the first volume and the prose idyl, A Kentucky Cardinal, 
are probably the most popular of his works, while The Choir 
Invisible is his strongest novel. 

The scene of Allen's stories, long and short, is the wonderfully 
beautiful Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky around Lexington, 
where he spent his most impressionable years. The rich 



330 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

pastures, with their clumps of shade trees and grazing cattle 
and blooded horses; the limpid streams winding through the 
meadows; the fragrant clover fields of early summer and the 
hazy hemp fields of autumn; the luxuriant cornfields and the 
waving stretches of golden wheat in June; the white roads, or 
''pikes/' across the rolling landscape, forming a network of 
communication; the old stone fences guarding the highway, 
English fashion; all these outward features, together with the 
full, free life, of that enchanting spot, are ideally portrayed in 
this Kentuckian's books. Here is a bit of poetic coloring: 

They are all mine — these Kentucky wheat fields. After the owner 
has taken from them his last sheaf, I come in and gather my harvest 
also — one that he did not see, and doubtless would not begnidge me 
— the harvest of beauty. Or I walk beside tufted aromatic hemp 
fields, as along the shores of softly foaming emerald seas; or part 
the rank and file of fields of Indian corn, which stand like armies 
that had gotten ready to march, but been kept waiting for further 
orders, until at last the soldiers had gotten tired, as the gayest will, 
of their yellow plumes and green ribbons, and let their big hands 
fall heavily down at their sides. There the white and the purple 
morning-glories hang their long festoons and open to the soft mid- 
night winds their elfin trumpets. 

The delightful novelettes, A Kentucky Cardinal and its 
sequel, Aftermath, are pastoral idyls, poems in prose : the singing 
and fate of the red bird, the wooing of the lovers, the ripening 
strawberries, give to this garden story, in which heart and mind 
are changed by love and nature, an atmosphere all its own. 
In A Summer in Arcady the high tide of summer suggests 
reflections on the subtle connection between the physical 
forces of nature and human instincts and passions, a sort of 
prelude to the perplexing problems raised in The Reign of 
Law. In human interest, however, such a story as ''King 
Solomon of Kentuckj^," found in Flute and Violin, far surpasses 
all other shorter stories of James Lane Allen. The scene is in 
the Lexington of 1833, when the cholera left its ravages upon 
that fair town. The hitherto worthless vagabond, called in 
mockery "King Solomon,'^ reaches the depths of his humilia- 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 331 

tion on the public square when he is auctioned off to the highest 
bidder, but finds his redemption in a service of supreme heroism 
to the community in the dark days of the plague. It is one of 
the great short stories of American literature. 

The Choir Invisible has great human interest also. It is 
a romantic tale of pioneer times in Kentucky, and it opens on a 
''fragrant afternoon of May" in the year 1795. The hero is 
John Gray, a country school-teacher, who is no doubt in part 
drawn from the author himself. The real heroine is Mrs. 
Faulkner, a noble type of womanhood; between the two is 
sympathy of mind and heart. In the old book of Arthur and 
the Round Table, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d' Arthur, they 
read, but love is unconfessed, and each obeys the higher law 
of duty, which is sometimes the hand of fate and tragedy. 
The fight with the panther in the schoolroom is a thrilHng 
incident such as one seldom finds in Allen's works. 

He is, indeed, preeminently a painter of quiet scenes and an 
analyst of inner motives. There is comparatively little action 
in his stories, and his plots are not complex. The restrained 
tragedy of certain situations, the humanness of a landscape, 
and the fateful determination of character, suggest Thomas 
Hardy, mthout, however, the general somberness of that 
novehst. Allen's landscapes are the smiling blue-grass pastures 
idealized and humanized, and his stories are prose idyls artisti- 
cally done in choice musical English. 

THOMAS NELSON PAGE (1853- ) 

His Life. — ^^Thomas Nelson Page was bom at Oakland Plantation 
in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1853. He was educated at Wash- 
ington and Lee University, entering the institution during the pres- 
idency of General Robert E. Lee. After leaving college in 1872, he 
tutored for a while in a private family near Louisville, Kentucky. 
Then he entered the Law School of the University of Virginia, from 
which he graduated in 1874. Between 1875 and 1893 he practised 
law in Richmond. Meanwhile he had written many stories of old 
Virginia life and become famous. He was in demand as a lecturer 
and as a reader of his o^^^^ stories, which he interpreted with great 



332 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




THOMAS NELSON PAGE 

success. Since 1893 Mr. Page has lived in Washington and has 
given himself entirely to literary work. In 1913 he was appointed 
ambassador to Italy by President Wilson, who in so doing revived 
the fme old traditions of our earlier diplomacy when Irving, Haw- 
thorne, and Lowell serv^ed their country abroad. 



His Works. — Thomas Nelson Page began his literary career 
by writing stories and sketches for the newspapers, as did 
also, Cable and Harris. His first great short stor}^, ''Marse 
Chan," was written in 1880, but was not published until 1884, 
when it appeared in Scribner^s Magazine, after remaining in the 
office of that periodical for four years. It was received with 
universal praise. Other stories followed in rapid succession; 
all were collected in a single volume, published in 1887 under 
the title, In Ole Virginia. Three of them have become 
classics— "Marse Chan," ''Meh Lady," and "Unc' Edinburg's 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 333 

Drowndin'." This volume, indeed, has held its place as the 
author's most popular and characteristic work. Other books, 
in the order of publication, are: Two Little Confederates (1888), 
On New Found River (1891), Elsket and Other Stories (1891), 
The Old South (1892), Social Life in Old Virginia (1897), Red 
Rock (1898), Gordon Keith (1903), a life of Robert E. Lee, 
and other volumes. 

While Page has written dialect poems, essays, and biography, 
it is as a writer of stories on life in the South, or to be more 
specific, in Virginia, before and during the war and immediately 
thereafter, that he has won permanent fame. How they 
lived on the old plantations, how loyal the darkies were to 
their masters and mistresses in war times, and how Virginia 
suffered in the dark reconstruction days, — these are the themes 
on which he is most at home. No one is better fitted to write 
on this general subject than Thomas Nelson Page, descendant 
of an old and distinguished Virginia family, whose traditions 
touch much that is best in the political, intellectual, and 
social history of the Old Dominion. With the scenes he 
describes, some of which center about his native plantation 
home, he was familiar in one way or another, and from his 
boyhood he was an entertaining story-teller. With irresistible 
pathos and humor he has depicted the negro of slave days in 
his relation to his master; he has shown in artistic fashion the 
kindly feeling, amounting often to active sympathy, between 
them; and he has shown the heroism of servant and master and 
mistress in those times that tried men's souls. 

These charming stories, of which ^'Marse Chan" and "Meh 
Lady" are typical, are usually told by a faithful negro whose 
affections for the family have not been changed by the new 
relationship. To him the days ^'befo de war" were the golden 
days; and when the struggle, the inevitable conflict, came, he 
also turned out to be a hero through his unfaltering devotion to 
**Marse Chan" or to '^Marse Phil" and his family. Pathos and 
humor are close together in the pictures of the old order; the 



334 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

welling tear is arrested by the faint smile. At the end of ''Meh 
Lady" the old negro, Uncle Billy, sitting at his door in the 
moonlight dreamily smoking, has a vision of the dear dead days, 
in the telling of which there is an exquisite union of quaint, 
heartfelt pathos and gentle humor, but the pathos prevails. 
The moonlight, in truth, is over all that poetic past, the moon- 
light of memory, very much as it is over the fairylands of 
childhood. As Page sees that old civihzation, it was ''the 
sweetest, purest, and most beautiful ever lived." 

This sentiment finds delightful expression in Red Rock, the 
preface to which prepares us for^the romantic treatment of the 
material, so artistically done, indeed, as to seem quite realistic. 
But through it all we are made to feel that with the passing of 
the old regime in Virginia there vanished from the earth a 
glory as hopeless of recovery as a lost Pleiad. ''Even the 
moonlight was richer and mellower before the war than it is 
now." Dr. Gary in Red Rock is a noble figure, one of the finest 
in our fiction, heroic in his life of service. The old community 
lives again, as we read this delineation of men and women 
bravely taking up their burdens after the war. And the book 
ends in hope; the spirit of reconciliation between the sundered 
sections is manifest; the prophecy of a new nationalism is there. 

It has been the province of Thomas Nelson Page to recon- 
struct aristocratic Virginia at the end of the golden age. Upon 
the whole he has done this more pleasingly in his short stories 
than in his novels. He has been particularly successful in 
portraying the Virginia woman of war times, the heroine of 
the home who learned to minister also to those on the battle- 
field and to endure with serene courage the discomforts of 
poverty. In his dealing with negro dialect he is as successful 
as Joel Chandler Harris and Irwin Russell; but, as has been 
pointed out, he is concerned with the negro only as "an ac- 
cessory to the w^hite man,"^ while Harris and Russell have 
given him a separate existence through his folklore, Page\s 

^South^rvf Writers^ Vol, 11, p. 147: articlQ by Mm^^ 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



335 



contribution is a series of memorable pictures of the happy 
relations between master and man. 

LATER WRITERS 

The writers already considered are representative of literature 
in the South up to the end of the nineteenth century. The list 
is not an exhaustive one, for the limits of this work forbid an 
attempt at that; only those writers who, by virtue of some 
noteworthy contribution, have come to be regarded as standard, 
are discussed ; even these arc 
subject to a modification of 
values in the judgment of a 
later posterity. Few living 
writers, indeed, can assured- 
ly boast themselves of to- 
morrow; in literature it is 
hard to tell what a decade 
may bring forth. Predic- 
tions are perilous, and ''the 
whirligig of time brings in 
his revenges." 

There are a few writers 
of prose fiction who have 
become widely known since 
the closing years of the last 
century, and who within the 
last decade have strength- 
ened their claims to permanent recognition. 




SIDNEY PORTER (O. HENRY) 



William Sidney Porter C'O. Henry") (1862-1910).— Born 
in Greensboro, North Carolina, drug-clerk, newspaper-writer 
and bank-clerk in Texas, wanderer in Central America, prisoner, 
short-story writer in New York City, William Sidney Porter 
became widely known in the first decade of this century for 



336 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

his surprisingly clever stories in certain New York magazines, 
signed ''0. Henry." These stories, later collected into a dozen 
volumes, grew out of his observations in Texas and Central 
America but mostly in the great American metropolis. Such 
volumes as The Four Million, The Voice of the City, Roads of 
Destiny, The Trimmed Lamp, Sixes and Sevens, Strictly Busi- 
ness, and Options show him at his best. Life in New York as 
he saw it on the streets, in the parks, in the shops, in cafes and 
lodging-houses, was the grist for his marvelous mill. Human- 
ness, compactness, and final dramatic surprise are three un- 
failing characteristics of an O. Henry story. The dialogue is 
simple and natural, often humorous, sometimes intense, and 
the conclusion climactic. The tone is journalistic. The 
purpose in general is to depict the romance of the common 
human heart and the common human life. 0. Henry declared 
that he tried to show that ''the innate propensity of human 
nature is to choose the good instead of the bad." 

It is too early, of course, to speak with assurance of William 
Sidney Porter's place in literature. It is already evident that 
since Bret Harte no one has made so significant a contribution 
to the American short story. 0. Henry has journalized the 
type in America as Kipling did in England, and in so doing 
he has greatly humanized it. Some of his stories are good art, 
others are not. Some of them are cheap and melodramatic. 
It is altogether likely, however, that a sufficiently large number 
will continue to appeal to readers by their sentiment, their 
truth to human . life, their dramatic quality, and their formal 
excellence, to establish the fame of O. Henry as an original 
force in American literature, an artist in his specialty and not 
merely a clever entertainer. 

John Fox (1863-1920), a native of the Blue-Grass Region of 
Kentucky, wrote interesting short stories and novels of 
life in the Kentucky and Virginia mountains. He lived for 
many years at Big Stone Gap, Virginia, among the people 
whom he described, sustaining . to that region something of 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 337 

the relation that Miss Murf ree does to the Tennessee mountains. 
Fox was able to depict more simply and intimately the lives 
of the mountain folk than Miss Murfree. His novels are 
dramatic in tone rather than epic, and his thorough knowledge 
of his characters gives the narrative a homely realism. The 
best-known of his works are : The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, A 
Cumberland Vendetta, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, 
and A Knight of the Cumberland. 

A reaction against realism is to be found in the earlier work 

of Mary Johnston (1870- ),cf Virginia, whose Prisoners of 

Hope, To Have and to Hold, Audrey, and Lewis Rand, deal 
with the romantic period of old Virginia history. In these 
romances there is a revival of the historical novel in a modified 
form. Her two later works, The Long Roll (1910) and Cease 
Firing (1912), depict scenes and heroes of the Confederacy. 
Miss Johnston shows a remarkably extensive knowledge of the 
background of her novels and an unusual grasp on historical 
detail. Her later novels are more realistic than the earlier, 
the purpose being to portray with faithfulness some of the 
great campaigns, battles, and leaders of the Southern side. 
This she does with vigor and vividness. These works form a 
sort of prose epic of that mighty struggle. 

Another Virginia novelist, Ellen Glasgow (1874 ),has 

chosen as the general theme of her most interesting novels the 
changing society of the South after the war and the consequent 
social readjustments. The Deliverance, The Voice of the People, 
The Romance of a Plain Man, The Miller of Old Church, Vir- 
ginia, and Life and Gabriella develop various phases of this 
theme in a striking way, but the main interest is in the puzzling 
question of unequal marriages. The inferior class of society 
under the old order, growing prosperous and enlightened, 
aspires to intermarriage with the descendants of the higher 
class. The gradual intermingling of the two social strata seems 
to typify, as in a kind of faint allegory, the triumph of de- 
mocracy in the New South, which is to recruit itself from the 



338 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ranks. These realistic novels, however one may interpret the 
complex social problems there presented, are thought-provoking. 
The themes are developed with clearness, courage, and well- 
conceived art. 

Among the other numerous present-day writers Alice Hegan 

Rice (1870 ), of Kentucky, may be mentioned for her 

clever delineation in humorous and breezy fashion of simple, 
humble folk, for whose struggles she shows a sympathetic 
appreciation. Her most famous book is Mrs. Wiggs of the 
Cabbage Patchy which has been successfully dramatized. The 
widespread interest in forms of social service shows its influence 
in the work of Henry Sydnor Harrison, who began his career 
as an editorial writer on the Richmond Times- Dispatch, and 
whose novels, Queed and V. F.'s Eyes, have won high praise for 
the strength and nobility of the characters portrayed and for 
the wholesomeness and ingenuity of the plots. James Branch 

Cabell (1879- ), is another Virginia novelist who has 

attained wide recognition by the fine artistry of his stories. 
His mastery of a finished style is shown by his treatment of 
medieval romance touched with the modern spirit. Among 
his stories are The Soul of Melicent, The Line of Love, The 
Cream of the Jest, and Jurgen, 

Other Southern Writers. — Other writers in the South since the 
war to whom brief notice must be given are: Richard Malcolm 
Johnston (1822-1898), who was bom and educated in Georgia but 
spent the last thirty years of his life in Baltimore and Washington. 
He was lawyer, college professor (in the University of Georgia, 
1857-'61), schoolmaster (in Baltimore), and at the time of his death 
was connected with the United States Bureau of Education. He is 
author of a number of volumes of stories, but his best work is the 
collection of Dukesborough Tales (1871), racy stories of Georgia 
country life around the village of Powelton, four miles from the 
author's birthplace. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915), a native 
of Baltimore, has written one famous story of Southern life. Colonel 
Carter of Cartersville (1891). Literature was his avocation rather 
than his vocation, for he was civil engineer, painter, and light-house 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 339 

builder. Augusta Evans Wilsox (1835-1909), was bom in Georgia, 
but spent most of her life in Mobile, Alabama; she wrote a number 
of romances, of w^hich 'S'^. Elmo is the best. Her books were once 
popular, but the stilted style and the pedantry do not greatly appeal 
to readers now. >S'^. Elmo was once a "best seller" and, despite its 
unrealities of plot and character, still exerts a fascination on the 
romantic youthful mind. W. Gordok McCabe (1841-1920), of Rich- 
mond, Virginia, wrote fine poems of war time, the best known of 
which are "Dreaming in the Trenches," "Christmas Night of '62," 

and "Only a Memory." Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849 ) was 

bom in England, but because she lived for a time in Tennessee she 
is sometimes classified as a Southern writer. Her most notable 
work is Little Lord Fauntleroy, though she has w^ritten other exceed- 
ingly popular stories, such, for instance, as That Lass o' Lowrie's. 

Marion Harland (Mrs. Mary V. Terhune) (1831 ), though born 

in Virginia, has spent most of her life out of the South; her writing, 
however, has been largely on Southern life. Her stories, such as 
Sunnybank, Judith, and others, are bright and wholesome. Another 
writer connected with the South is George Gary Eggleston (1839- 
1912), brother of Edward Eggleston, the Indiana writer. Eggleston 
was bom in Indiana, of Virginia ancestry; was educated at Depauw 
University and Richmond Gollege, Virginia; served in the Confed- 
erate army; and spent most of his life in New York City as editor 
and author. He wrote a number of stories on old Southern life, 
sevei'al books of adventure for young people, and entertaining 
reminiscences of his own experience as soldier and literary man. 
Harry Still well Edwards (1854 ) of Macon, Georgia, has writ- 
ten entertaining stories and sketches of Southern life and character. 
Grace Elizabeth King (1852 ), of Louisiana, has made val- 
uable contributions to local literature and history, especially on the 
Creole and the early history of her native state. Among her works 
are Monsieur Motte, Tales of Time and Place, and Balcony Stories. 
Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856-1917), of Louisiana, was the author 
of many pleasing short stories of lowly life, including the negro, in 
the South. Her work is artistically and sympathetically done. She 
has been called "the laureate of the lowly." Among others who have 
achieved success in story writing are Katherine Sherwood Bonner, 
of Mississippi; Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetskoy) of Virginia; 
Will Harben, of Georgia; Molly Elliot Seawell and Mrs. Kate 
Langley Bosher, of Virginia. George D. Prentice (1802-1870), a 
^^ative Qf Connecticut, spent most of his life in Louisville, Kentucky^ 



340 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

as editor of the Louisville Journal, now the Courier- Journal: he 
wrote a number of poems of somber sentiment, somewhat in the man- 
ner of Bryant, the best of which is "The Closing Year" in blank 
verse. Johx Hexry Boxer (1845-1903), a native of Salem, North 
Carolina, spent much of his life in Washington and New York in the 
government service and engaged in literary work ; he wrote numerous 
poems, the best known of which is "Poe's Cottage at Fordham." 
Hexry T. Staxtox (1834-1899), of Kentucky, is the author of one 
popular poem, "The Moneyless Man." Johx Charles McNeil (1874- 
1907), of North Carolina, wrote several nature-lyrics, such as 
"October" and "At Sea," of fine quality, and many dialect poems. 
Cale Youxg Rice, of Kentucky, is the author of several volumes of 
verse and a number of poetic dramas. Archibald Hexdersox (1877- 

), of North Carolina, has written much excellent dramatic 

criticism and biography. Margaret P. Moxtague (1878 ), of 

^^'est Virginia, is a gifted writer of short stories, among them being 
"Linda," "Closed Doors," "The Gift," and "Uncle Sam of Freedom 
Ridge." 



THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 341 

THE CHAPTER IN OUTLINE 



I. Poetry 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) : Poems— The Raven, The Bells, Ulalume, 
Annabel Lee, etc.; Short Stories; Critical Essays. Lover of beauty, 
terror; and mystery; father of the modern short story. 

Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) : Poems — Song of the Chattahoochee, 
Marshes of Glynn, Sunrise, etc. The Science of English Verse. Applied 
musical technique to poetry. 

Henry Timrod (1829-1867): Poems— Cotton Boll, Spring, Memorial 
Ode, etc. Singer of lyrics on nature and patriotism. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) : Poems— Aspects of the Pines, The 
Mocking-Birds, Sonnets, etc. Nature poet; called "the laureate of the 
South." 

II. Oratory 

John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Henry W. Grady (The New South). 

III. Prose Fiction 

William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) : Romances of War and Adventure 
— The Yemassee, The Partisan, The Scout, etc. Writer of stories 
about Indian and Revolutionary struggles in the South. 

John P. Kennedy, J. Esten Cooke: Stories of old Southern life and 
conflict. 

George W. Cable : Old Creole life in Louisiana. 

Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908): Negro Folk-lore— Uncle Remus 
stories. 

Mary N. Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock): The Tennessee Moun- 
taineer. 

James Lane Allen : The Romance of the Kentucky Blue Grass. 
Thomas Nelson Page : Virginia in the "Golden Age." 
William Sidney Porter (O. Henry) (1862-1910): Short-story writer— 
the romance of the common lot. 



Southern poetry, mostly lyric, has the qualities of beauty, melody, and 
delicate technique; it is highly musical ; it reflects the moods and coloring 
of nature. jSouthern jSctjpjn js essentjally romantic, rich in **^tmosphere." 



342 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

SOME USEFUL BOOKS 

Historical and Social. — The South in the Building of the Nation (12 
vols.); Histories of States in "American Commonwealths" series; 
Rhodes's History of the United States (1850-1877) is an elaborate 
study of a critical period; Wilson's Disunion and Reunion; Page's 
The Old South; Page's Social Life in Old Virginia before the War; 
Brown's The Lower South in American History. 

Literary. — Library of Southern Literature (12 vols.); Holliday's 
History of Southern Literature (Neale); Manly's Southern Litera- 
ture (Johnson); Trent's Southern Writers (Macmillan); Basker- 
ville's Southern Writers (2 vols.); Link's Pioneers of Southern 
Literature (2 vols.); Moses' The Literature of the South (Crowell); 
Abemethy's Southern Poets (Maynard); Painter's Poets of the 
South (American Book Co.); Clark's Songs of the South (Lippin- 
cott); Weber's The Southern Poets (Macmillan); Kent's Southern 
Poems (Houghton); McConnell's Selections from Southern Orators 
(Macmillan); Pattee's American Literature since 1870 (Century 
Co.) 

Poe. — Life by Woodberry, Harrison; complete works, edited by 
Harrison and Stewart ("Virginia Edition"), Woodberry and Sted- 
man; complete poems, edited by Whitty; poems edited by Campbell; 
selections edited by Prescott, Trent, Graves, Kent, Stewart (John- 
son), etc.; Fruit's The Mind and Art of Poe; Smith's The American 
Short Story (Ginn); Smith's Poe — How to Know Him (Bobbs-Mer- 
rill). 

Lanier. — Life by Mims (American Men of Letters) ; poems edited 
by his wife, with sketch of life by William Hayes Ward. 

Timrod. — Memorial edition of Timrod's Poems (Johnson) has a 
brief biographical sketch. 

Simms. — Trent's Life of William Gilmore Simms (American Men 
of Letters) is the standard biography; The Yemassee has been 
edited, with notes and introduction, by Lyle (Johnson). There is a 
good study of Simms in Erskine's Leading American Novelists 
(Holt). 

Excellent one-volume collections from Southern literature are 
Trent's Southern Writers (Macmillan) and Mims and Payne's 
Southern Prose and Poetry (Scribner). The most comprehensive 
work is the Library of Southern Literature (Hoyt). Two recent 
works of interest are Fulton's Southern Life in Southern Literature 
(Ginn) and C. Alphonso Smith's O. Henry: A Biography (Double- 
(Jay, Page). 



CHAPTER SIX 
WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 

Magazines and Libraries. — From the first the magazine 
has served to introduce the unknown writer to his pubhc, and 
those cities in which magazines have most flourished have 
gained the widest reputation as hterary centers. The North 
American Review was founded in Boston in 1815 and later 
moved to New York; the Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly 
Magazine, was estabhshed in 1833; the Southern Literary 
Messenger began its career in Richmond in 1834; Graham^ s 
Magazine, in Philadelphia in 1841, a year later than The Dial 
in Boston; in 1850 Harper's Magazine appeared in New York, 
and three years later Putnam's Monthly Magazine was started; 
in 1857 the Atlantic Monthly, the greatest of American literary 
magazines, was established in Boston, with Lowell as editor; 
Scribner's Monthly (which became the Century in 1881) began 
in 1870; the present Scribner's Magazine was started in 1887. 
All these magazines have been instrumental in the development 
of American literature; among their editors have been such 
notable writers as Lowell, Poe, Aldrich, and Howells, while 
their contributors include the foremost names in our literature. 

The magazines have thus helped to determine the making of 
literary centers. It has already been pointed out that Boston 
was the first of these, yielding to Philadelphia and then to New 
York; about 1840 Boston regained its prominence in letters. 
In the old South the nearest approach to a literary center was 
Charleston, South Carolina, in the days of Simms and his 
coterie, whose organ was RusselVs Magazine, published in that 
city; this periodical and the Southern Literary Messenger of 

[343] 



344. AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Richmond, though never adequately supported, gave encourage- 
ment to younger writers. Since the passing of the classic New- 
England group of authors, New York has again grown into 
prominence as a literary center. Here are issued most of the 
great metropolitan magazines, here are many of the great 
publishing houses, here are the largest newspapers. Hither 
come writers with their wares to sell; book-writing has become 
almost as well systematized a business as book-publishing: the 
magazines demand short stories and serials, and the enter- 
prising pubhsher is on the lookout for the novelist who may 
have the manuscript of a ''best seller." A close commercial 
relationship has accordingly come to exist between writer and 
publisher; the literary syndicate has become an important factor 
in contemporary authorship. Other great cities, such as 
Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, have their literary interests 
and their publishing-houses, but New York, without having 
any well-defined school of writers, has preeminence as a maga- 
zine and publishing center. 

Another stimulus to literary production has been the growth 
of public libraries. In all the great cities, and even in the 
smaller towns and villages, libraries have been established with 
remarkable rapidity; these minister in a large way to the re- 
creational and cultural needs of the people and stimulate in- 
tellectual effort. Where there are libraries there is apt to be 
literary activity. Great book collections like the Library of 
Congress, the Boston Public Library, the New York Public 
Library, the Newberry Library of Chicago, and others, are 
nucleating centers of literary influence. 

The Grov/th of Realism. — Up to the beginning of the last 
quarter of the nineteenth century, American fiction had been 
essentially romantic in tone. The first of our novelists, Charles 
Brockden Brown, as we have seen, wrote of unusual sights 
and sounds and experiences, emphasizing the strange and the 
terrible; Cooper revealed the romance of the forest and the sea; 
Simms wrote of pioneer struggles with the Indians and of 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 



845 



Revolution times in the South; Irving invested with romantic 
charm the Hudson River region and its Dutch legends; Poe 
and Hawthorne were fond of the mysterious and the unusual; 
even the later story-writers, Cable, Harris, Allen, and others, 
have dwelt with delight upon a vanishing picturesque past 
about which an atmosphere of romance had formed. 

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, however, 
there was a decided shift of emphasis from the romantic to the 



f^^fe^^^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
Washington, D. C. 

realistic in novels and short stories. Absolute truth to life 
is what this newer school of writers demand. They felt that 
our fiction was falling into the bondage of tradition and in 
consequence failed sufiiciently to take account of the vital 
forces round about it; ^^it remained for realism to assert that 
fidelity to experience and probability of motive are essential 
conditions of a great imaginative literature." They asserted 
that as romanticism displaced the worn-out classicism of the 
eighteenth century, so realism must supersede our tired 
romanticism. Instead of idealizing people and things, they 
would paint them as they are. The chief champions of realism 
in American fiction have been William Dean Howells and 
Henry James, both of whom will be considered presently. 
Howells defines realism as ''nothing more and nothing less than 



346 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the truthful treatment of material" ; and he asserts, furthermore, 
that ''it wishes to know and to tell the truth, confident that 
consolation and dehght are there." Democracy in literature, 
he thinks, demands this attitude of mind and this method of 
treatment. While the realists have not been able to apply 
their theory with perfect consistency, they have at any rate 
made its virtues clear and they have shown in their stories the 
spirit of reaction against the older romantic writing. No 
doubt the great vogue of the short story in the magazines has 
also hastened the growth of realism. 

The Middle States writers may be divided into three groups: 
(1) The Essayists, (2) the Poets, and (3) the Novelists. Among 
the essayists are George William Curtis, Charles Dudley 
Warner, Donald G. Mitchell, and John Burroughs; among the 
poets. Bayard Taylor, Richard Henry Stoddard, Walt Whit- 
man, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and Richard Watson Gilder; 
the novelists are William Dean Howells, Henry James, and 
F. Marion Crawford. 

THE ESSAYISTS ' I 

George William Curtis (1824-1892).— George William Curtis, 
essayist, orator, and reformer, was born in Providence, Rhode 
Island; attended school near Boston; moved to New York at 
fifteen; spent two years (from eighteen to twenty) at Brook 
Farm, the idealistic community near Boston; lived a year at Con- 
cord in association with Emerson and other idealists; spent four 
years (1846-'50) in Europe and the Orient; and upon his return, 
settled down to Hterary work in New York. In 1854 he took 
charge of the *'Easy Chair" in Harper^s Monthly, and with 
that department and with Harper's Weekly as editorial writer 
he was connected until his death. He was also editor of 
Putnamrs Magazine until its failure in 1857, and it is to be 
remembered to his honor that he insisted on paying the creditors 
of that periodical — a task of sixteen years. Curtis was a leader 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 34j7 

in civil service reform, being the first chairman of the Civil 
Service Commission. Though he was active in politics, he 
persistently declined office. At heart and in practice he was 
essentially a reformer. 

The most important writings of Curtis are The Potiphar 
Papers, Prue and I, and Trumps, a novel. These books are 
satires on the sordidness of fashionable New York life. The 
most pleasing of them is Prue and I, a dehcate little prose idyl 
of a simple and happy Hfe in contrast to that of the shallow 
and selfish metropolitan society. The most charming of his 
works is the series of papers selected from the ''Easy Chair'^; 
in this chatty, rambhng personal essay Curtis was perfectly 
at home. His genial, refined nature shows at its best in these 
monthly talks; Idndliness and human sympathy run through 
them all, reheved by gentle humor and graceful satire. To 
the urbanity of Addison he added the mildly playful humor of 
Lamb, though he was a more serious reformer than either. 
American hterature has no more delightful bits of genial 
human philosophy than the ''Easy Chair" essays. Other 
volumes are Literary and Social Essays and Orations and 
Addresses. Curtis was an accompHshed orator, greatly in 
demand on academic occasions; the pohsh and refinement of 
his style and the purity of his ideals won for him an apprecia- 
tive hearing; such an address, for instance, as "The Leader- 
ship of Educated Men," delivered at Brown University in 1882, 
is one of the most striking of his public utterances. Along 
with his charm of personality went the virtue of intense ideahsm, 
a fineness of culture, and an unwavering devotion to moral 
principles. 

Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900).— Charles Dudley 
Warner^ essayist and journalist, was bom in Plainfield, Massa- 
chusetts; educated at Hamilton College and the University of 
Pennsylvania; was for a few years a lawyer in Chicago; then 
turned to journalism, and was editor of newspapers in Hartford, 
Connecticut, and later, one of the editors of Harper's Magazine, 



848 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

His first noteworthy book was My Summer in a Garden (1870), 
a collection of pleasing sketches which established his reputa- 
tion as an essayist and humorist. Other works are Being a 
Boy, Backlog Studies, and several entertaining volumes of 
travels. Being a Boy abounds in reminiscences of the author's 
own New England boyhood, and is an altogether charming 
book; Backlog Studies is a volume of dehghtful conversations 
on literature, topics of the day, and matters of sentiment. 
Besides these works, Warner wrote several novels, which have 
not added to his fame, and collaborated with Mark Twain in 
The Gilded Age. He is, moreover, author of an interesting life 
of Irving in the ''American Men of Letters" series, of which 
he was the general editor. 

Whatever Charles Dudley Warner touched he adorned; he 
was a man of wide culture, broad sympathies, keen moral 
sensibilities, and delicate humor. He combined the qualities 
of a joumahstof the best type with those of the lover of books 
and the successful man of letters; there is in his writings an 
element of genial friendliness which wins the reader at once. 
He belongs in the same class with Irving, Ohver Wendell 
Holmes, and George William Curtis, all of them personal 
essayists who please by the ''diffused light which illuminates 
their writing on various themes, not by any startling or sensa- 
tional effect." 

Donald G. Mitchell (1822-1908).— Donald Grant Mitchell, 
better known by his penname of "Ik Marvel," was bom at 
Norwich, Connecticut; educated at Yale; traveled in Europe, 
and wrote a volume of impressions; studied law, but never 
practised; after another trip abroad, he wrote a book of sketches 
in the vein of Irving's earher work; was United States consul 
at Venice from 1853 to 1855; on his return to America he settled 
down on his farm Edgewood, near New Haven, where as a 
sort of rural philosopher and gentleman farmer he spent the 
rest of his life. He was for many years a member of the 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 349 

council of the Yale Art School and gave some lectures on 
English literature in the university. 

The two books that brought fame to Mitchell are : Reveries of 
a Bachelor (1850) and Dream Life (1851), sketches of gentle 
sentiment, somewhat old-fashioned in this day of strenuous 
realism, but pleasant reading when the dreamy mood holds 
youth in thrall on soft summer days. Few books of their kind 
have attained a wider popularity. "Ik Marvel" wrote many 
other Avorks — My Farm at Edgewood, Wet Days at Edgewood, 
Rural Studies, English Lands, Letters and Kings, American 
Lands and Letters, besides editing the Atlantic Almanac and 
Hearth and Home for a year or two. His life was one of quiet 
devotion to literature in a charming rural retreat; he was a 
bucolic philosopher of mellow culture, mildly sentimental and 
tenderly sympathetic, who wrote in a clear, high-bred, leisurely 
style not unlike Irving's. 

John Burroughs (1837-1921). — John Burroughs, essayist and 
naturalist, was born in Roxbury , New York ; had scant opportu- 
nities for an education, but was an eager and diligent reader 
and a keen observer of outdoor life; taught school for nine 
years; worked for a time in the Treasury Department at Wash- 
ington, and was later employed as a bank-examiner; in 1874 
he settled down at West Park on the Hudson River; here 
at his home, Riverby, and at his retreat a mile away in the 
woods, Slabsides, he read, wrote, and enjoyed the undisturbed 
companionship of his neighbors, the birds and the squirrels, un- 
til his death. He was a naturalist with the curiosity and 
patience of a scientist and the artistic sensibilities of a literary 
man. 

Burroughs wrote a number of books on nature — }Vake Robin, 
Locusts and Wild Honey, Fresh Fields, Signs and Seasons, Sharp 
Eyes, and others, — all drawn directly from his close observation 
of life about him at Slabsides. ''You must have the bird in 
your heart," says he, ''before you can find it in the bush." 
That is the secret of his lively portrayal of animate as well as 



350 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

inanimate life — he had both the bird and the bush in his heart. 
He wrote fresh and vital verse on outdoor themes, published in 
a volume called Bird and Bough. Burroughs was also a literary 
critic of remarkable sanity and penetration : Thoreau, Emerson, 
Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and Walt Whitman, were his mas- 
ters; from them he learned how to write with clearness and 
vigor and how to keep his eye on the object. In his literary 
essays, originally contributed to the magazines and later pub- 
Hshed as Indoor Studies and Literary Values, he talked with 
great good sense and with artistic discrimination of style, on 
the relation of literature to life and other matters in the field 
of appreciative criticism. He was an essayist of open mind 
and broad sympathies, with a suggestive style which has the 
flavor of the outdoors. 

THE POETS 

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878).— Bayard Taylor, poet, traveler, 
and novelist, was born at Kennett Square, Chester County, 
Pennsylvania, of Quaker and German ancestry; attended the 
local schools, and was at seventeen apprenticed to a printer; 
indulging his passion for travel, he made long journeys in Europe 
and the Orient as correspondent of New York papers, and soon 
after the publication of Views Afoot in 1846 he became a 
regular contributor to the New York Tribune. Though spend- 
ing much time in travel at home and abroad, he had an ambi- 
tion to own land and a fine mansion; accordingly, just after 
his marriage in 1857 to a German lady he bought the old 
Taylor homestead and much additional land and built Cedar- 
croft, a princely home for a man of letters. Here he studied 
several languages and wrote many of his works. In 1869 he 
was appointed lecturer on German literature in Cornell Uni- 
versity, and in 1878 w^as sent as United States minister to 
Germany, but died a few months after his arrival at Berlin. 

The works of Bayard Taylor, who ranks with Lowell and 
Holmes in versatility, include several volumes of poems, eleven 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 351 

volumes of travels, and four novels. He preferred to be con- 
sidered a poet, and in spirit he was essentially poetic. Some 
of his most notable productions in verse are Poems of the Orient 
(1854), lyrics of sensuous beauty, of which the ^'Bedouin 
Song'' is the best known; The Poefs Journal (1862), another 
collection of short poems; the long poems, Lars: a Pastoral of 
Norway, The Prophet, The Masque of the Gods, Prince Deukalion, 
— the last three dramatic pieces; Home Pastorals and Ballads, 
the Gettysburg Ode, and the Centennial Ode (1876). The 
^'Bedouin Song,'' especially the concluding refrain in each stanza, 
is familiar to readers of American verse: 

From the desert I come to thee, 

On a stallion shod with fire; 
And the winds are left behind 

In the speed of my desire. 
Under thy window I stand, 

And the midnight hears my cry: 
I love thee! I love but thee! 
With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! 

Look from thy window and see 

My passion and my pain I 
I lie on the sands below, 

And I faint in thy disdain. 
Let the night-winds touch thy brow 
With the heat of my burning sigh, 
And melt thee to hear the vow 
Of a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! 

My steps are nightly driven, 

By the fever in my breast, 
To hear from thy lattice breathed 

The word that shall give me rest. 



362 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Open the door of thy heart, 

And open thy chamber door, 
And my kisses shall teach thy lips 
The love that shall fade no more 
TUl the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! 

The poetic work of Bayard Taylor that seems likely to live 
the longest is his translation of Goethe's Faust (1870) in the 
original meters. He knew the German language well, he had 
a wide and sympathetic acquaintance with German hterature, 
and he succeeded in making a translation which holds its own 
as the best version in English of Goethe's great poem. In his 
own verse, particularly in his lyrics, Taylor shows delicate and 
finished craftsmanship, but there is a lack of simplicity and 
spontaneity; there are unmistakable echoes of Shelley and 
Tennyson, without the compelUng charm of those masters. 
Still, in view both of the variety of his verse and the artistic 
finish of some of it, he will be remembered as a true poet, if not 
as a great one. 

Among Bayard Taylor's voluminous prose works the Views 
Afoot (1846) may safely be called his best. He was an in- 
defatigable traveler, he had an interesting personality, he had 
imagination, and he had a graphic style. One may take up 
these books of travel to-day and not be disappointed, so fresh 
and vital are the touches, so human is the point of view of the 
tramp-author in his joumeyings through many lands. But 
the novels are distinctly disappointing: Hannah Thurston deals 
with the various isms of the middle cf the nineteenth century — 
spiritualism, vegetarianism, teetotalism, and the hke, — and is 
accordingly a kind of satire on reformers; The Story of Kennett 
centers about the author's old home and is a pleasing picture 
of f amihar people and background, with an element of auto- 
biography. These are agreeable books, but they do not 
impress the reader so favorably as Taylor's poems and travels. 



WRITERS'OF EASTERN STATES 



353 




WALT WHITMAN 



WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) 



His Life. — Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Long Island, May 
31, 1819, of English and Dutch ancestry. His father, a carpenter and 
farmer, was also named Walter, and the son, to distinguish him from his 
father, came to be known as Walt. The family moved to Brooklyn 
when Walt was four years old, and in and around Brooklyn, withf rcquent 
long stays in the country, he spent much of the first forty years of his 
life. He attended the public schools of Brooklyn, and at the age of 
fourteen learned to set type. For many years after this he worked on 
newspapers in New York and Brookh-n as tjT)esetter, contributor, and 
editor, being for a year editor of the Brooklyn Ecgle. Meanwhile he had 
become thoroughly acquainted with New York City and its environs; 
he knew the omnibus drivers on Broadway, with whom he loved to ride; 
he was fond of the opera and the theater; he delighted in bathing off 
Coney Island beach and in skating on the Long Island bays; he would 
race up and do'^oi the hard sand, he says, declaiming Homer and Shake- 
speare to the surf and sea-gulls by the hour. During one or two winters 
he taught school, and by 1849 he had written a number of pieces in prose 
and verse. 



354 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

That year he left Brooklyn for a leisurely trip through the Middle 
States, down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where he 
worked for a time on the editorial staff of the Daily Crescent; then he 
gave up his position and slowly plodded his way northward, up the 
Mississippi, by way of the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, Southern Canada, 
and down the Hudson to New York. He had made in all a journey of 
about eight thousand miles and gained valuable experience. He now 
returned to his old work of editing and printing; he also engaged with 
his father in his old business of building and selling houses in Brooklyn. 
He had now decided, however, to devote himself mainly to writing the 
poetry of Democracy, having experienced a sort of conversion from 
things material to concerns literary and patriotic. He accordingly 
composed and printed in 1855 his first edition of representative poems, 
Leaves of Grass, giving only so much time to his industrial occupations 
as was necessary for a simple support. 

In 1862 Whitman's brother was wounded in the first battle of Fredericks- 
burg, and the poet went South to nurse him. Thus began his long service 
as an army and hospital attendant, which continued until the army 
hospitals at Washington were closed. These years of ministration in 
the tents and hospitals of the Union army constitute the most interesting 
and admirable period in Whitman's life. He was not so much a regular 
nurse as a visitor and comforter of the sick and wounded, bringing good 
cheer and doing various little services for the soldiers, though he dressed 
many wounds and watched by the dying. After the war he was appointed 
to a clerkship in the Interior Department at Washington; from this he 
wa^ removed because of objection to certain coarse passages in his 
Leaves of Grass, but was soon given a clerkship in the office of the 
Attorney-General. This position he held until 1873, when a stroke of 
paralysis compelled him to give up regular work. He retired to Camden, 
New Jersey, where his brother was living, and there as a semi-invalid 
he spent the rest of his long life, supported partly by the meager income 
from his books and partly by the gifts of admiring friends. He died 
March 26, 1892, and was buried in Harleigh Cemetery, Camden. 

His Personality. — In his earlier life Walt Whitman seems to 
have been a man of boundless vitality, full of interest in things 
and people around him. His health was good and the mere 
joy of living filled his whole being. He freely associated with 
all sorts and conditions of men — laborers, omnibus drivers, 
street- car conductors, ferry-boat pilots, tramps, farm hands, 
and the motley city crowds. He loved humanity not simply 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 355 

in the mass, but better as individuals; he said he liked to stay- 
close to men, look upon them, and touch them. He liked 
what was elemental, energetic, and creative in human nature, 
the unspoiled animal in man. He also loved the outdoors, 
the sea, the woods, the wide expanse of field, and the open road. 
There w^as something of the vagabond in him: his associations 
in his early New York days must have been decidedly Bohemian. 

The nature of Walt Whitman was freely and ruggedly 
democratic; his sympathies were broad and deep, and there 
was an instinct of great tenderness in him. This was man- 
ifested in his unselfish service as a volunteer nurse in the 
army hospitals, a period of his life on which he afterwards 
thought with peculiar satisfaction, as do the readers of his own 
Specimen Days. And yet it cannot be denied that he was 
considerable of an egotist, that he was fond of posing, and 
that he sometimes showed an utter lack of a sense of propriety. 
His admirers glorify his strong, genuine personality; others, 
unable to get up enthusiasm for the man, regard him as uncouth 
and vulgar. The truth is doubtless to be found, as usual, 
somewhere between these extremes. Whitman was a man of 
large, primitive nature, a free and powerful personality, whose 
defects are the '^taints of liberty'' in a big, human individual 
with the redeeming virtues of sincerity and strength. 

His Poetry. — The first edition of Whitman's one volume of 
poems, Leaves of Grass, appeared in 1855; the volume was 
enlarged from time to time up to the year before the poet's 
death. Besides this collection of verse, there is a volume of 
prose containing the interesting essay. Democratic Vistas 
(1870) and a series of short pieces, some of them autobiographic, 
entitled Specimen Days. A number of letters have been 
collected and published in a volume called The Wound- Dresser. 
It is his poetry, however, which must concern us here, the book 
he named Leaves of Grass. 

Whitman's earliest experiments in verse were in conventional 
rhyme and meter, contributed to newspapers and magazines; 



356 American LiTERATtmE 

there is nothing remarkable about these productions either 
in form or sentiment. Evidently Whitman definitely decided 
to try something new in verse-form, either because he found he 
could not be free enough in the old, or, as some insist, having 
failed in the old, he wanted to attract attention by being 
eccentric. The first is the likelier explanation; wishing to chant* 
the song of Democracy he felt himself cramped in the traditional 
poetic dress. That he dihgently strove to acquire an imusual 
method of utterance is proved by this remark: 'T had great 
trouble in leaving out the stock 'poeticaF touches, but suc- 
ceeded at last." This also considerably modifies the ''inspira- 
tion theory" of those worshipful admirers who find in his 
poetry the exaltation of the prophets of old. The truth is, 
Whitman carefully revised and elaborated his poems, rearrang- 
ing them more than once to accord with his assertion that 
Leaves of Grass was to be regarded as a unified whole and not a 
collection in one volume of scattered, unrelated pieces. 

The form of the verse is indeed peculiar. With the excep- 
tion of the well-known ''O "Captain! My Captain!" there arc 
few rhyming lines in Leaves of Grass and little regularity of 
line-length and stanza-length. There is rhythm, however, 
such as we find in Biblical verse. Whitman loved to declaim 
Homer (in translation, of course), Shakespeare, and the sonorous 
prose of the King James version of the Bible; nourished on these, 
he had naturally caught something of their movement. His 
own verse is a form of rhythmical chant, which, when read 
aloud in suflB.ciently long stretches, falls upon the ear with a 
cadence hke that of orchestral music. The trouble v^th most 
readers is that they interpret through the eye alone; poetry is 
intended to be heard as well as seen, and real poetry cannot be 
properly enjoyed without vocal interpretation; this is particu- 
larly true of Whitman's verse. He himself Hkened it to ''the 
recurrence of lesser and larger waves on the seashore, rolling 
in without intermission, and fitfully rising and falling." If 
one will read aloud to the very end such chants as "Out of the 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 357 

Cradle Endlessly Rocking' ' and *'When Lilacs Last in the 
Dooryard Bloomed/' one will discover a melody, a slow lilting 
effect which is both calming and ennobling. It is useless to 
attempt to scan such verse, for it was not made to scan; in the 
best of it there is a larger, freer harmony that befits the primal 
things of which this man of elemental mold knew how to sing. 

But there are pages and pages of Whitman's verse which are 
mere catalogues T\athout rhythm or reason, perplexing enumera- 
tions of objects jumbled together in a weltering chaos. These 
passages do not reward an effort to find a hidden harmony. 
Now and then one comes across a fine phrase, a few fines 
touched with fancy, in the dreary inventory, as if in the midst 
of a prosaic stretch the T\Titer had intermittent flashes of 
inspiration. To judge a poet by such lapses would of course 
be unfair; probably a third to a half of Wordsworth might be 
onfitted -vidthout serious loss to English poetr^^ and certainly 
we might do -^dthout that much of Bro^Tiing. Whitman 
insisted that in writing the complete poetry of Democracy, the 
interpreter of which he boasted himself to be, his method 
must be inclusive; nothing was to be considered too mean or 
too trivial to be celebrated in song. This feeling will in part 
account for the *' cataloguing" processes in his verse; the very 
names of familiar objects probably had for him a poetic connota- 
tion. 

The varietj^, the outdoor freshness, and the newness of the 
subject matter of Wliitman's poetry become evident from such 
titles as these: 'There was a Child Went Forth," ''Song of 
Myself," ''Song of the Open Road," "Crossing Brookl^Ti 
Ferry," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," 'T hear 
America Singing," "The Prairie-Grass Dividing," "O Magnet- 
South," "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" "As Toilsome I wandered 
Virginia's Woods," "From Paumanok Starting I fly like a Bird," 
"With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!" "By Blue Ontario's 
Shore." These words and phrases have both rhythm and 
imaginative suggestiveness; indeed, no other American poet is 



368 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

SO happy as Whitman in coining taking titles with an air of 
democratic freedom and an outlook of vast horizons. Often 
what follows a promising heading is distinctly disappointing — 
the artistic headlines are not sustained by the body of the 
poem; then, on the other hand, one is time and again uplifted 
by such fine Hues as these, chosen here and there : 

Out of the mocking-bird^s throat, the musical shuttle. 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear. 

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night, 

When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day. 

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full dazzling, 
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard. 

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet. 

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, 

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields 

and the prairies wide, 
Over the dense-packed cities all and the teeming wharves 

and ways, 
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death. 

Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky, 
And on the distant waves sail countless ships. 
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me. 

Over against such rhythmical Hnes as these, in which Whitman 
nearly approaches the conventional standard of poetry, place 
the following passages: 

The axe leaps! 

The solid forest gives fluid utterances. 

They tumble forth, they rise and form. 

Hut, tent, landing, survey, 

Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade. 

Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 359 

Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition house, library, 
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch, 
Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, 

mallet, wedge, rounce. 
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, 
Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame, and what not, 
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States. 

The sun and stars that float in the open air. 

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them 

is something grand, 
I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is 

happiness, 
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or 

bon-mot or reconnoissance, ' 

And that it is not something which by luck that may turn out well 

for us, and without luck must be a failure for us. 
And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain 

contingency. 

If these two passages be poetry, then certainly we must revise 
our definitions. Fortunately, however, there is enough real 
poetry in Leaves of Grass, although it lacks regularity of meter, 
on which to pass judgment without taking into account such 
incoherent masses of words as these. It is easy to parody 
Whitman at his worst and call his verse in general mere 
"barbaric yawp"; but there is still a large amount of verse of 
very different quality to be reckoned with. 

We shall not have to modify our standards of poetry to 
include such a noble chant as "When Lilacs last in the Door- 
yard Bloomed," which no one with lAusical sensibihty can 
read aloud without acknowledging its power over the imagina- 
tion and the emotions. It is a dirge for Lincoln, whom the 
poet greatly admired. The interweaving of the three motifs 
of the poem — 

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, 

is effectively done. "Never but once before, in 'Out of the 
Cradle Endlessly Rocking,* was Whitman capable of such 



360 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

sustained and deep-toned recitative, varied with lyric interludes 
of such pure beauty."^ These two longer poems and the 
shorter ones — "Pioneers! O Pioneers !'' "When I Heard 
the Learned Astronomer," "The Singer in the Prison," "The 
Mystic Trumpeter," "The Prayer of Columbus," and "With 
Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!" — give one a taste of Whitman 
at his best. 

Characteristics and Contribution. — ^When we try to sum up 
and appraise Whitman's qualities, the first thing to be said is 
that he consciously set about bringing into poetry something 
new — "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." In his 
notebooks, prefaces, and verse he announces his program. He 
would be the spokesman for American Democracy in its 
ruggedness, strength, and freedom; he would, moreover, "get 
a real human being into a book" in his entirety. After speaking 
of Homer, Shakespeare, and Scott, and their respective contribu- 
tions, he concludes: "I will be also a master after my own kind, 
making the poems of emotion, as they pass or stay, the poems 
of freedom, and the expose of personality — singing in high 
tones Democracy and the New World of it through These 
States." A significant entry in one of his notebooks is, "Write 
a book of new things." In his poem, "The Song of the Open 
Road," he adjures the reader: 

Listen! I will be honest with you, 

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new piizes; 

and in the opening verses of Leaves of Grass he declares his 
intention : 

One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person, 

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. 

Of physiology from top to toe T sing, 

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I 

say the Form complete is worthier far, 
The Female equally with the Male I sing. 



1 Bliss Perry: Walt Whitman, p. 157. 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 361 

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
Cheerful, for freest action formed under the laws divine, 
The IModern ISIan I sing. 

From these quotations it is evident that Whitman is a 
strong individualist. Here he is akin to Emerson and the 
other transcendentahsts. W^e find in him a curious compound 
of reaUst, mystic, and egotist. The flattering notice of the 
Enghsh critic Symonds, and of the poets Tennyson and Swin- 
burne, and of Emerson in particular — an extract from whose 
letter of congratulation was, in violation of good taste, em- 
blazoned in gilt letters on the cover of the second edition of 
Leaves of Grass — fed WTiitman's natural egotism. WTiittier 
threw the copy sent him into the fire, and many reviewers 
severely criticized the queer book. The literary war continued 
off and on for a number of years, and even now there is no 
unanimity of opinion on W^hitman as a poet. He was charged 
with obscenity because of his frank treatment of sex; granted 
that in a complete portrayal of life a writer might demand the 
right to deal with this subject in a large epic way as one of 
nature's creative processes, it cannot be denied that W^hitman's 
indelicate method justly gives offense. Without being erotic, 
he made the mistake of supposing that reahsm demands the 
dragging in of offensive subjects. Indeed, the most serious 
defect of this apostle of Democracy was his lack of a sense of 
proportion — his evident inability to select the material suscepti- 
ble of artistic treatment and to reject the rest. The eUmination 
of the dross of human life is the way of the great poets. 

But when all is told — the uncouthness, the cataloguing, the 
formlessness, the stress of the commonplace, the fleshly element, 
the absence of romantic love, — the important fact remains 
that Walfc Whitman greatly enlarged the sphere of American 
poetry. He was hailed by foreign critics as the typical Ameri- 
can poet who had arrived at last. Undoubtedly he voices the 
bigness and the democratic freedom of a new country, but it 
takes a great many things to make a nation, and he can justly 



362 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

be said to be the interpreter of only some of the most significant 
phases of Democracy, not of all. Those who read him aright 
will find a distinct strain of ideaUsm in his verse, notes of cheer 
and courage in the song of material triumph. His audience 
will probably never be very large; it will, as Mr. Bliss Perry 
says, ''be limited to those who have the intellectual and moral 
generosity to understand him, and will take the pains to 
do so.'' 

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903).— Richard Henry 
Stoddard was born at Hingham, Massachusetts; went to New 
York at the age of ten, and after a few years' schoohng worked 
at various jobs until 1853, when he became a clerk in the New 
York customhouse; this position he filled for seventeen years; 
for a short time he was clerk in the dock commissioner's office, 
and then city fibrarian; he had meanwhile been literary editor 
of the New York World, and during the last twenty years of 
his life he held a similar position on the Mail and Express, 
From his boyhood Stoddard was devoted to poetry; he worked 
by day, but gave his waking hours at night to the reading and 
writing of verse. Though he had published two collections of 
verse before 1856, it was in this year that his poetic reputation 
was firmly established by the appearance of Songs of Summer, 
which Stedman praises for melody and artistic beauty, 

Stoddard -wrote several volumes of Hterary criticism and 
reminiscences, but he will be remembered as a lyric poet of 
charm and distinction. He had a fine sense for form and 
beauty which shows in the structure and harmony of his 
shorter poems. Among these are 'The Sky is a Drinking- 
Cup," "The Ffight of Youth," ''A Gazelle," ''Hymn to the 
Sea," "Birds." One of his most exquisite poems is "Leonatus," 
a kind of romantic ballad on "the fair boy Leonatus, the page 
of Imogen," which would have done credit to Coleridge. 
Stoddard is less imitative in his lyrics than in his longer poems, 
and he has an assured place in American literature as a singer 
of delicate sensibility. 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 363 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908). — Edmund Clarence 
Stedman was bom in Connecticut, but spent most of his life in 
New York as a journalist and banker. His interests in Wall 
Street, where he was fairly successful, won for him the name of 
"the banker poet"; his heart, however, was more in his poetry 
and criticism than in the transactions of the Stock Exchange, 
of which for thirty-six years he was a member. He is best as a 
lyric and occasional poet; in the latter respect he sometimes 
almost rivals Holmes. His verse shows careful workmanship, 
and now and then — as, for instance, in the song, "Thou art 
mine, thou hast given thy word" — it becomes impassioned. 
Several of his well-known poems are 'Tan in Wall Street," 
"The World Well Lost," "Si Jeunesse Savait" (If Youth only 
Knew), and "Wanted — A Man"; some of his most successful 
verse was called forth by the war. Stedman is one of the most 
accomplished of American critics; his three volumes, The 
Victorian Poets, Poets of Ainerica, and The Nature and Elements 
of Poetry, show uncommon critical ability, though he lacks the 
insight and originality of Poe and Lowell. So far his American 
Anthology is the best one-volume collection of our poetry, 
while his Library of American Literature (in collaboration with 
Hutchinson) is the only comprehensive work of its kind. 

Richard Watson Gilder (1833-1908).— Richard Watson Gilder 
was born in New Jersey, and spent much of his life in New York 
as editor of the Century Magazine. His first volume of poems, 
The New Day, came out in 1875; other volumes are Five 
Books of Song and A Christmas Wreath. His most characteristic 
verse reveals refinement of feeling and a dehcate sense of form, 
as does that of other poets of this minor group. Perhaps his 
most famous production is "The Sonnet," which is itself a fine 
example of that difficult poetic form: 

What is a sonnet? 'Tis a pearly shell 
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring seaj 
A precious jewel carved most curiously; 
It is 9. little picture painted welli 



364} AMERICAN LITERATURE 

What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell 

From a great poet's hidden ecstasy; 

A two-edged sword, a star, a song — ah me I 

Sometimes a heavy-tolling fmieral bell. 

This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath, 

The solemn organ whereon Milton played, 

And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls: 

A sea this is — beware who ventureth ! 

For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid 

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls. 

Other Eastern Poets. — Among other poets of the Middle States group, 
the following are worthy of note: George H. Boker (1823-1890), native 
of Philadelphia, graduate of Princeton, minister to Turkey and to Russia. 
Boker wrote many lyric poems of merit; his sonnets are among the best 
in American poetry; it is his tragedy, Francesca da Rimini, however, 
that has won for him lasting fame. Of the many treatments of Dante's 
well-known scene, Boker's is one of the finest blank-verse dramatiza- 
tions; it is still seen on the stage, and is the only one of his plays familiar 
to this generation. The verse and the movement of Francesca da Rimini 
show a high order of artistic talent. Alice and Phoebe Gary, sisters, 
went to New York in 1852 from their Ohio home and until their deaths 
in 1871 wrote many poems. Their verse is for the most part gravely 
sentimental: Alice Gary had the vein of deeper pathos, while Phoebe 
Gary was more cheerful, The popular hymn, ''One Sweetly Solemn 
Thought," is by Phoebe Gary. Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881) 
was a native of Massachusetts, but spent the last ten years of his life in 
New York as editor of Scribner's Monthly. His stories in verse, Bitter- 
Sweet and Katrina, were once widely read, but the commonplace quality 
of subject matter and style has made against the permanency of their 
fame; their tone, however, is wholesome and their ideals high. Thomas 
Buchanan Read (1822-1872), native of Ghester county, Pennsylvania, 
was a painter and poet. Of his numerous poems the most enduring have 
proved to be ^'Sheridan's Ride" and the languorous lyric, ^'Drifting." 
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), of New York, is the author of meritorious 
poems, among which are Admetus, Songs of a Semite, and The Dance of 
Death. Frank Dempster Sherman (1860-1916) and Brander Matthews 

(1852^ ) are Golumbia University professors who have written verse of 

excellent quality. Henry Van Dyke (1852- ), of Princeton, has, in 

addition to his prose stories and sketches, produced verse of a pleasing 
and uplifting nature. Of all present-day poets of the Middle States, 
George Edward Woodberry (1855---^— ), sometime professor in Golumbia 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 365 

University, is perhaps the most eminent for the finish and tone of 

his verse. Percy MacKaye (1875 ), a native of New York 

City, has written poetic dramas, such as The Canterbury Pilgrims, of 
hterary distinction and good acting qualities. Edith M. Thc^ias 

(1854 ), a native of Ohio but long resident in New York, has 

^vritten lyric and dramatic verse of fine quality. Clixton Scollard 

(1860 ), professor of English literature in Hamilton College, N. 

Y., is the writer of many spirited patriotic poems and lyrics. 

THE NOVELISTS 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1837-1920) 

His Life. — William Dean Howells, the leader of realism in Amer- 
ican prose fiction, was born 

at Martin's Ferry, Ohio, in .-.-^^.......■■..■-^^^^^^ v— -^ 

1837. He early went to work .^. ^^^^^^^^^^^ . ■ 

in his father's newspaper 
office, and there learned to 
be a printer. Naturally he 
turned to writing for the 
papers; this journalistic ex- 
perience was his education, 
for he had no opportunity 
to go to college. He wrote 
for the Cincinnati Gazette 
and the Columbus State 
Journal and in 1860 pre- 
pared a campaign biography 
of Lincoln. This latter effort 
was rewarded by his ap- 
pointment as consul to 
Venice: here he spent four 

years (1861-'65), studying, WILLIAM DEAN howells 

observing, writing. His residence in the old city in the sea was the 
turning-point of his life. Upon his return to America he settled in 
New York, where he did journalistic work on several papers. In 
1866 he became assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly in Boston, 
and editor in 1872; this position he held until 1881. He then joined 
the editorial staff of the Century Magazine and later that of Harper's. 
With the latter he was connected until his death, though he con- 
tinued to write novels and other foi-ms of literature. For many 
years he was called "The Dean of American letters." The occasion 
of his seventieth birthday in 1907 was made memorable by a 




366 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

notable gathering of writers in New York in his honor. He died in 
New York, May 11, 1920. 

His Works. — Howells wrote seventy-five or eighty books 
in all — travels, plays, essays, sketches, reminiscences, poems, 
and novels. His literary career may be divided into three 
periods: to the first belong such books as Their Wedding 
Journey (1871), The Lady of the Aroostook (1878), and The 
Undiscovered Country (1880); to the second, or middle, period, 
the well-known novels, A Modern Instance (1882), The Rise of 
Silas Lapham (1885), The Minister's Charge (1886), India?! 
Summer (1886), and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889); to the 
third. Their Silver Wedding Journey, The Kentons, and The 
Son of Royal Langhrith (1904), The Leatherwood God (1916), 
and The Vacation of the Kelwyns (1920). His most valuable 
contribution to lit^^rary criticism is his little book on the novel, 
Criticism and Fiction (1891). 

The earlier work of William Dean Howells is more touched 
with romantic fancy than the later; something of the coloring 
of the youthful Venetian days seems to linger in the first 
stories. By the time he wrote Silas Lapham, however, his 
idealism had paled into the Hght of c<jmmon day. That 
novel, certainly one of his best, traces the development of a 
self-made merchant through great financial prosperity to the 
loss of his fortune and the final triumph of his moral integrity. 
His rise from obscurity, his family's social ambitions in Boston, 
his lack of culture, his business transactions, are all treated in 
an entertaining and artistic fashion, so that the story is both a 
lifelike narrative and a gentle satire on social climbing and the 
pride of wealth. The Rise of Silas Lapham is a thorough 
bit of American realism, redeemed from the commonplace by 
the ease, naturalness, and playful humor with which Howells 
invests his delineation of provincial characters. One of the 
strongest of his novels is A Modern Instance, of which he says, 
"I have there come closest to American life as I know it." 
Powerful as the book is, it is not pleasant reading, for it reveals 
in a depressing way the sordid manner of life in an unhappy 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 367 

family, where petty jealousy, dishonesty, and weariness darken 
domestic relationships. In delightful contrast to all this is 
Indian Summer, the scene of which is laid in Florence, Italy, 
a land that Howells knew and loved. The story revolves 
around the sentimental association of three persons — a young 
girl of imaginative temperament, a widow, and a man of forty- 
odd whose slight disillusion with life gives his talk a certain 
pleasing piquancy. In the novehst's later manner is A Hazard 
of New Fortunes, a study of New York life with reference to the 
complex and infinite social problems of the metropohs. 

From this running comment on several of Howells's typical 
novels it will be seen that he is a reahst of quite modern interests. 
For the romantic material of the past which forms the staple 
of older novehsts he did not care; Walter Scott does not appeal 
to him, nor, for that matter, does Thackeray with his ethical 
interruptions of the plot; Jane Austen, with her faithful and 
minute delineations of neighborhood life, is his favorite English 
novelist, and among the moderns Tolstoy seems to have in- 
fluenced him most. In his luminous little book, Criticism and 
Fiction, Howells sets forth clearly and emphatically his theory 
of the novel. He quotes approvingly these words of Emerson : 
*'I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic ... I 
embrace the common; I sit at the feet of the familiar and the 
low . . . Man is surprised to find that things near are not 
less beautiful and wondrous than things remote . . . The 
perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries.'' 
It seems a little strange that so consummate an idealist as 
Emerson should furnish a text for so ardent a realist as Howells, 
and it is doubtful whether the Concord sage would have agreed 
with the novelist's application of it. However that may be, 
these words virtually express the theme of his discussion of 
the aims and materials of fiction. '^ReaHsm," he declares, *'is 
nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of 
material"; and he goes on to indicate the proper method of 
procedure in novel-writing: ''We must ask ourselves before we 



368 AMERICAN LITEEATUEE 

ask anything else, Is it true? — true to the motives, the impulses, 
the principles that shape the life of actual men and women?'' 
Accordingly, we find little that is thrilling in his books; the 
plot is slight and the interest is mainly in the talk of the 
characters and their relation to each other. 

Howells does not always rigidly follow his theory; the 
popularity of his novels shows that the mild romance of every- 
day life is certainly, in them and that his treatment of the 
crude material is artistic. We miss in them, it is true, the far 
horizon, the uphfting tone, the inspiriting note of the idealists; 
the impression one gets from reading them is that the world 
is a dead-level sort of place, without spiritual significance; 
we are too much in the presence of the trivialities of practical 
life; we would welcome an outlook, a vista through the city 
blocks and social sets to the delectable mountains beyond. 
The average man and w^oman are too much in evidence in his 
books, and the dreary routine of life seems unduly prominent. 
Despite these limitations, however, he has rendered a significant 
service to American literature: his novels are remarkably 
clever studies of certain cross-sections of contemporary society; 
he has helped to restrain the excesses of sentimental and 
romantic fiction by insisting on truthfulness to life; he has 
influenced the development of the American novel in the matter 
of clearer technique; and he has furnished as a model for 
youthful writers a style of rare grace and distinction. Besides 
all this, he has shown a keen interest in movements for social 
reform, as might be expected from an enthusiastic admirer of 
Tolstoy; while to young writers, eager to win their spurs in the 
perilous tournament of letters, he has ever been ready to extend 
the sympathetic hand. If his books lack elevation, as com- 
pared with the creations of the masters who saw life whole 
rather than in sections, they are at least thoroughly convincing 
by their lifelikeness of character and incident; and they appeal 
to the cultivated man or woman with knowledge of the world, 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 369 

by their refined humor and delicate irony. They give such 
readers keen intellectual joy. 

Henry James (1843-1916).— A more subtle and thoroughgoing 
realist is Henry James, who was born in New York, but who 
has spent most of his life abroad. His father was a distinguished 
theologian; his brother. Professor William James, of Harvard 
University, was a psychologist of world-wide reputation. 
Henry James was educated in Europe, studied law for a while 
at Harvard, but soon gave it up for literature. He began 
writing sketches for the magazines; in 1875 he pubHshed his 
first volume of stories, The Passionate Pilgrim; then followed 
the novels, Roderick Hudson (1875), The American (1877), 
Daisy Miller (1878), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The 
Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The 
Tragic Muse (1890), The Wings of a Dove ^902) The Golden 
Bowl (1904), and others. 

James's temperament and cosmopolitan training fitted him 
for writing a type of fiction essentially different from that of 
other novelists. His short stories, for instance, are free from 
the supernatural and romantic atmosphere that invests those 
of Poe and Hawthorne; they are realistic situations around 
which he lets his ingenious fancy play. This in truth is James's 
way in all his stories, long and short. His method is scientific, 
metaphysical; he does not ordinarily sympathize with his 
characters; he dissects them, studies them critically, almost 
disinterestedly; his attitude is intellectual; he is interested in 
the game, in the clash of personaUties in the complex problems 
of life. There is little or no plot proper; situations, groupings, 
interplay of mind with mind, brilliant conversation, minute 
analysis, constitute the processes of his art. For action he 
does not care; brain movements chiefly concern him; refined 
psychology is his product. He tries to make clear to his 
readers ''that life is an art, and that to play the game properly 
requires infinite finesse." The question arises in the mind 
of the reader whether James has not over-refined his art, 



370 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

chilling "the genial current of the souP' with his acute and 
fastidious dissection of character and motive. His subtlety- 
tends to end in enigma and his analysis in obscurity; the saner 
sentiment of his earlier books is succeeded by a bewildering 
metaphysical tangle in the latter; the involved diction seriously 
taxes the patience. 

The unique contribution of Henry James is the "inter- 
national novel." He Hkes to introduce American characters 
into old-world scenes and then study the behavior of crude 
specimens of democracy in an aristocratic setting. Thus, he 
transports the independent and unconventional girl, Daisy 
Miller, to Italy, and against the background of European 
culture depicts the doings and sayings of this dashing western 
creature in whom throbs a buoyant life untrammeled by 
tradition. It is cleverly done; the technique is perfect; the 
style is faultlessly urbane. James's culture is immense; he is 
an acute thinker and a sensitive observer; but so refined is his 
art that his appeal must always be limited. His brother, 
William James, it has been remarked, wrote psj^chology like a 
novelist, while he himself wrote novels hke a psychologist. 
Save for the fact that he was bom in America and that he is 
fond of delineating American characters in European surround- 
ings, Henry James need hardly be classed as an American 
writer; he lives in England, and his preferences are foreign. 

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909). — ^Another inter- 
national writer is Francis Marion Crawford, who was bom in 
Italy and spent much of his life in that romantic land. His 
father was Thomas Crawford, of New York, the well-known 
sculptor, who designed the bronze figure of liberty on the 
capitol dome at Washington and the equestrian statue of 
Washington in the capitol square at Richmond. Young 
Crawford was educated at Concord, New Hampshire, the' 
University of Cambridge, England, the University of Heidel- 
berg, Germany, and Harvard University. He also studied in 
Rome. He went to India to continue his study of Sanskrit, 



WRITEES OF EASTERN STATES 371 

and while in that country he did journalistic work. His first 
important novel, Mr. Isaacs, was the result of his observations 
of Oriental life during his two years' sojourn in India. In 
1884 he settled at Sorrento, Italy, overlooking the Bay of 
Naples, and in that enchanting spot he made his home the rest 
of his life. 

CraTs^ord was a prolific writer, turning out a novel or two a 
year for many years until about thirty volumes were produced. 
The best of his novels have European settings, though he 
wrote several stories on American life. Mr. Isaacs appeared 
in 1882 and at once made his reputation: it is romantic in tone, 
as befits the mystic East; accidents and coincidences seem to 
suit the hero's temperament in such an atmosphere. The 
Italian trilog;^^, Saracinesca, Sanf Ilario, and Don Orsino, 
many regard as his best work. These three novels trace the 
fortunes of an old Roman family during the last days of the 
papal power, before the imification of Italy in 1870, and in 
the early years of the new order. As a picture of life in Rome 
in those stirring times this series is valuable, for Crawford was 
thoroughly familiar with his subject; as a story of lively 
happenings and clear-cut personalities, when the aristocracy 
of old Italy was on the decline, it is intensely interesting. 
Saradnesca holds the attention to the end; the beautiful young 
wife of the worn-out old dandy, the Duke Astardente, wins 
one's Uking from the first, while the impetuous and sound- 
hearted old Prince Saracinesca is a figure of epic proportions. 
Other entertaining novels are A Cigarette-Maker's Romance, 
a story of Russian exiles in Munich; A Roman Singer; Dr. 
Claudius; and the historical works, Ave Roma Immortalis and 
Salve Venetia. 

Crawford's stories, unlike those of Howells and James, are 
essentially romantic, though he deals with his material in a 
realistic way. His characters seem quite human and their 
surroundings give peculiar significance to them. He knew 
well the background of his novels, for he was a keen observer 



372 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and a diligent student of history, language, and art. He had 
his theory of story-telHng, as Ho wells and James had, which 
he sets forth with care in the essay entitled *'The Novel — - 
What Is It?'' The novel, he asserts, ''must deal chiefly with 
love, for in that passion all men and women are most generally 
interested" ; its first object is ''to amuse and interest the reader" ; 
it is "a pocket theater" and the novelist himself is "a pubhc 
amuser." It is evident from these quotations that Crawford 
does not care for the novel of purpose, the so-called "problem 
novel"; he frankly aligns himself with the romanticists, but he 
insists that romance must have an air of naturalness — "must 
be of the human heart and truly human, that is, of the earth as 
we have found it." We accordingly find in Crawford's novels 
something of a compromise between romance and realism, with 
strong leanings toward the romantic. He always has a good 
story to tell; indeed, the story is the main thing and the 
characters are made to fit into it harmoniously. His books 
are clean, wholesome, and interesting. 

Other Story -Tellers. — ^Besides the three writers just con- 
sidered, who have already become classics, there is a con-- 
siderable group of story-tellers of whom the limits of this work 
will permit only passing mention. It will be noted that most 
of these wrote short stories as well as novels. Comment has 
already been made upon the immense vogue of the short story 
in American literature since the days of Poe and Hawthorne; 
that vogue continues with no likelihood of diminution. The 
growth of the magazines, the strenuous fife of to-day, the 
business demand for economy of space and time, the national 
fondness for directness and conciseness, the abundance of 
local color in this country of sections, each with its own peculiar 
background — all these conditions have contributed to the 
popularity of the short story. 

Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) , a native of Philadelphia who 
spent most of his life in New York as contributor to the 
magazines, wrote many volumes of short stories and novels. 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 373 

His first short stories were published in the Southern Literary 
Messenger; later he was connected with Scribner^s Magazine 
and St. NiQhoias. He had a whimsical humor, tending at 
times to farce or fantasy; the most notable example of his 
characteristic manner is 'The Lady or the Tiger?" This 
ingenious hoax appeared in the Century Magazine for Novem- 
ber, 1882, and estabhshed Stockton's reputation as a quizzical 
humorist. In 1879 he issued ''Rudder Grange" and other 
stories, which proved to be general favorites. Though he 
wrote several novels of respectable merit, Stockton will be 
remembered rather by his short stories of whimsical fancy. 

Edward Payson Roe (1838-1888), of New York State, was 
once widely popular as a writer of mildly sensational novels 
in which a moral purpose was evident. Without the qualities 
of genuine art in plot, character-delineation, or style, such 
stories as Barriers Burned Away (1872), Opening of a Chestnut 
Burr, and Near to Nature^ s Heart, made their appeal to a large 
class of readers whose literary tastes were not very highly 
cultivated. These novels are not, however, lacking in power, 
and they are certainly wholesome. 

Henry Van Dyke (1852 — ), Professor of English Literature 
in Princeton University and appointed Minister to Holland 
in 1913, has written a number of pleasing sketches and short 
stories, among which are "Little Rivers," "Fisherman's Luck," 
"The Ruling Passion," "The Other Wise Man," and "The 
Blue Flower." 

Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) (1857 — ), a native of 
Philadelphia, is the author of dehghtful children's stories and 
other works in which sympathy, humor, and pathos are the 
leading characteristics. Representative Btories are Rebecca of 
Sunnybrook Farm. Penelope's Progress, and A Cathedral Court- 
ship. 

Paul Leicester Ford (1865-1902), a native of Brooklyn, 
wrote several novels, two of which were widely read and 
praised, The Honorable Peter Stirling, suggested in part, it is 



374 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

thought, by the career of Grover Cleveland; and Janice 
Meredith, a historical novel on the Revolution period. Both 
books are interesting studies of certain aspects of American 
life in two widely-separated epochs. 

Owen Wister (1860- ), native of Philadelphia, has written 

novels of life in the West and South, his best-known being 
The Virginian (1902) and Lady Baltimore (1906). The first 
of these deals with ranch life in Wyoming, in which there is a 
love story centering about a cowboy (the ''Virginian") and a 
school-teacher of New England rearing; the second book takes 
its name from the well-known Southern cake and the part it 
plays in certain experiences and observations in Charleston. 
Wister's best short story is ''Philosophy Four," a delightfully 
humorous satire on college examinations suggested by his 
student days at Harvard. 

Mrs. Edith Wharton (1862 ),of New York, is one of the 

cleverest writers of social satire in American fiction. Two of 
her novels. The House of Mirth and The Fruit of the Tree, are 
subtle studies of society problems in one form or another. 
Other novels are The Custom of the Country, Ethan Frame, and 
The Age of Innocence (1920). The analysis of contemporary 
high society in its motives and ambitions is cold and merciless; 
the books, while rather depressing in their intense realism, are 
both artistic and intellectual, and are brilliant contributions to 
a popular and difficult phase of modern fiction. Mrs. Wharton 
is particularly successful in her short stories, which show un- 
common skill in psychological analysis. 

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), of Philadelphia, was a 
physician who comparatively late in life turned to literature. 
His most famous book is Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker (1897), 
a story of the Revolution; other works are The Adventures of 
Francois, Dr. North and his Friends, and Constance Trescot. 
Dr. Mitchell has also written excellent poetry. 

Still other successful writers of the Eastern States are Henry 
C. BuNNER (1855-1896), short-story writer; Richard Harping 



WRITERS OF EASTERN STATES 375 

Davis (1864-1916), author of short stories of New York life; 

Agnes Repplier (1857 ), essayist; John Kendrick Bangs 

(1862 ), humorist; Brander Matthews (1852 ), critic 

and short-story writer; William Crary Brownell, (1851 ), 

eminent critic and essayist; Paul Elmer More (1864- ), 

author of Shelburne Essays. Two recent Presidents of. the 
United States have a higher claim to literary distinction than 
most of their predecessors, several of whom have already been 
mentioned. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), wrote histories, 
books of travel and adventure, and essays, of great interest for 
their clear and vigorous style, their content, and their reflec- 
tion of a striking personality. The Winning of the West is his 

best-known historical work. Woodrow Wilson (1856- ) 

is the author of A History of the American People, The State, 
several volumes of essays, and many state papers and addresses, 
notable for their grace of style, intellectual subtlety, and wide 
democratic sympathies. 



376 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE CHAPTER IN OUTLINE 

Essayists 

George William Curtis (1824-1892) : The Potiphar Papers, Prue 
and I. 

Charles Dudley Warner: Backlog Studies. 
Donald G. Mitchell: The Reveries of a Bachelor. 
John Burroughs: Locusts and Wild Honey, etc. 

Poets 

Bayard Taylor: Lyric poems, Translation of Faust, Travels. 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892): Leaves of Grass. Rugged, individ- 
ualistic poet of democracy; irregular rhythmical chants. 

Richard Henry Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Richard 
Watson Gilder: Lyric poems. 

Story-Writers 

William Dean Howells (1837-1920): Modem Instance, Silas Lap- 
ham, Indian Summer, etc. Realist. 

Henry James: Daisy Miller, Bostonians, Golden Bowl, etc. Minute 
analyst of character; international novelist. 

Francis Marion CraAvford: Mr. Isaacs, Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, 
etc. Romantic international novelist. 

Frank R. Stockton, Henry Van Dyke, Paul Leicester Ford, Owen 
Wister, Mrs. Edith Wharton, Silas Weir Mitchell. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 
WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 

The West in Literature. — The discovery of gold in California 
in 1848 was the beginning of a new era in national development. 
The region beyond the Rockies was opened to hordes of rest- 
less wanderers in search of wealth and homes as well as to eager 
young writers in quest of fresh material. Bret Harte was one 
of these. Since his day hundreds of others have found matter 
for story and poem in the variegated activities and picturesque 
backgrounds of the far West. The spectacular features of 
that vanished life of the frontier have been painted in magazine 
sketches and celebrated in moving-picture shows. This 
essentially romantic mood in western literature, however, has 
been superseded by a more realistic one. The newer literature 
of the West still ''draws its inspiration from original contact 
with men and with nature"^ and less from books than the 
literature of the East, but it has lost much of its old breeziness, 
and all of the old drowsiness which came from a touch of the 
Spanish civilization on the border. Having outgrown its early 
youth and attained its majority, western literature is now 
entering upon an age of lusty vigor. Already notable for the 
quality and quantity of its literary achievement, the West is 
still the land of promise in American letters. 

The western state which has given the nation the most 
noteworthy group of writers is Indiana. Other middle-western 
states have their distinguished literary sons, and Chicago as 
the metropolis of the West has more authors in its confines 
than other urban centers, but so far Indiana has made a larger 
contribution to American literature than any other region of 
that vast area west of the Alleghanies. In the far West Cali- 

^Hamlin Garland. 

[377] 



378 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

fornia has developed a considerable group of writers. After 
discussing such pioneer storj^-tellers as Bret Harte and Mark 
Twain, we shall consider the representative later western 
writers. 

Before doing this, however, mention should be made of the 
contribution to American literature of Abraham Lincoln 
(1809-1865). Lincoln was not a literary man, but several of 
his speeches unmistakably belong to literature. The most 
famous of these is the ''Gettysburg Address," delivered at the 
dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 
19, 1863. The words of this short speech are familiar to all; 
its conciseness, simplicity, and earnestness, commend it to the 
heart and the head; it is an interpretation of patriotic emotion 
in noble diction. The Second Inaugural Address (1865) also 
has literary qualities, especially in those heightened parts which 
show the influence of Biblical phraseology. That this western 
lawyer, without academic or other cultural advantages, was 
able to write English prose of such enduring quality is to 
be explained in part by the direct and concrete habit of mind 
gained in practical experiences with pioneer conditions, so 
that his words represented things actually seen or felt; and 
in part by his familiarity with a few standard books, such 
as the Bible, PilgrMs ProgresSj Franklin's Autobiography, 
and Shakespeare's Works, which in repeated readings he had 
made thoroughly his own. What he wrote had, therefore, the 
stamp of sincerity. His style has the simplicity of Franklin's, 
with greater moral earnestness. 

STORY-WRITERS AND POETS 
BRET HARTE (1839-1902) 

His Life. — Bret Harte was bom in Albany, New York, in 1839, 
son of a teacher in a local college. In his ancestry were English, 
.Dutch, and Hebrew strains. Harte' s father died when the boy was 
nine, and his rearing devolved upon his mother. As he was 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 



379 



delicate, his attendance at school was more or less irregular; at 
thirteen his academic training ended. Fortunately, however, there 
was a good library in his home, and he began reading at an early 
age such classics as Shakespeare, Froissart, Cei'vantes, Fielding, 
Smollett, Goldsmith, Dickens, and Ii-ving. It is easy to see from 
his own poetry that Dickens was a favorite. 

At the age of fifteen Bret Harte went with his mother to Cali- 
fornia. Here he did various kinds of work— teaching, mining, tax- 
collecting, clerking in a drug-store, and setting type on a news- 
paper; more important still, as far as local color in his future stories 
was concerned, he served for a while as express messenger on stages 
running in northern California. For a short time in 1856 he was 




BRET HARTE 

assistant editor of the Northern Califomian; the next year he did 
editorial work on the Golden Era of San Fi'ancisco, and here he 
began in earnest his life as an author. In 1864, two years after his 
marriage, Harte was made secretary of the California Mint, a posi- 
tion which he held for six years, during which he carried on his 
literary work, assured of a living income. When the Overland 



380 AMERICAN LiTERATURE 

Monthly was founded in 1868 he became editor, and in this periodical 
were published some of his best poems and short stories. Friends 
and admirers in the East were urging him to come to New York; 
to these importunities Bret Harte, who inherited a restless disposi- 
tion from his father and mother, yielded; in 1871, after resigning 
the professorship of English literature in the University of Cali- 
fornia, to which he had just been elected, he left San Francisco for 
New York. He had spent seventeen years in the far West. 

The next seven years were passed mostly in and around New 
York. Harte was a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, and 
he lectured in various parts of the country. In these tours he went 
as far west as St. Louis, but he never returned to California, which 
had furnished him with the material for his most enduring work. 
This material he converted into numerous novels and short stories 
during his residence in the East and in Europe. In 1878 he was 
appointed United States consul at Crefeld, Germany, and after 
two years he was transferred to the consulate at Glasgow, Scotland. 
This position he held until 1885. The rest of his life he spent in 
England, where he had many friends among the literary folk. He 
died in 1902 and was buried in Frimley churchyard, Surrey. 

His Short Stories and Poems. — Bret Harte's works, in the 
authorized edition, number about twenty-eight volumes, 
including novels, short stories, and poems. His literary 
Hfe began, as we have seen, in California and ended in England; 
but no matter how far he wandered from the West, his theme 
in one form or another was that picturesque region of the 
fifties with its heterogeneous, life which he knew so well. He 
went to California in happy time for catching the lights and 
shadows of a passing panorama unique in our history. ''Here 
I was thrown," said he, ''among the strangest social conditions 
that the latter-day world has perhaps seen . . Amid 
rushing waters and wildwood freedom, an army of strong men, 
in red shirts and top-boots, were feverishly in search of the 
buried gold of earth ... It was a land of perfect freedom, 
limited only by the instinct and the habit of law which prevailed 
in the mass . . . Strong passions brought quick climaxes, 
all the better and worse forces of mankind being in unbridled 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 3S1 

play/* This is the interesting setting of Bret Harte's best 
books. His novels need not be considered here, for when he 
attempted long plots and involved character-analysis he was 
not notably successful; his short stories are his masterpieces. 
The story that made Bret Harte famous appeared in the 
Overland Monthly in 1868. This w^as "The Luck of Roaring 
Camp/' which long ago became an American classic. It 
introduces us at once, after the fashion of Poe, to the main 
subject, without preliminary exposition. An unusual event 
had happened at Roaring Camp: the birth of a child had 
caused commotion in this rough community. Through the 
death of the mother the baby was left to the camp, and they 
christened it ''The Luck." Especially devoted to the child 
was one uncouth specimen of manhood familiarly known as 
^'Kentuck,'' whose finger the infant suddenly grasped one day; 
from that moment ''Kentuck" was his slave. The presence 
of the baby wrought a wonderful change both in the manners 
and appearance of the camp: cleanliness and beauty took the 
place of dirt and ugliness; profanity and horse-play were less 
popular; vast improvements in the village were contemplated; 
an atmosphere of civilized decency was pervading the settle- 
ment. Suddenly one night the river, enlarged by the torrent 
of melting snows above, swept over its banks and Roaring 
Camp was washed away. The next morning far down the 
gulch a relief party found a man and an infant : 

It needed but a gianoe to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly 
crushed and bmised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring- Ccimp in 
his ai-ms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw 
that the child was cold and pulseless. "He is dead," said one. 
Kentuck opened his eyes. "Dead?" he repeated feebly. "Yes, my 
man, and you are dying too." A smile lit the eyes of the expiring 
Kentuck. "Djdng!" he repeated; "he's a-taking me with him. Tell 
the boys I've got the Luck with me now"; and the strong man, 
clinging to the frail babe as a drowning- man is said to cling to a 
straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to 
the unknown sea. 



382 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Other well-known short stories of Harte are 'The Outcasts 
of Poker Flat," 'Tennessee's Partner," 'The Idyl of Red 
Gulch," and 'The Iliad of Sandy Bar." These stories reproduce 
in a slightly heightened tone the local color of California 
mining life. Each has its element of moral idealism; for 
without being didactic, the story makes it clear that good is 
to be found in the rudest men, that even outcasts of society 
have redeeming virtues. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" shows 
the regenerating influence of a child's presence; 'Tennessee's 
Partner," perhaps the most touching of Harte's stories, is a 
lesson in deathless loyalty; "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is a 
study in the heroism of self-sacrifice. Here are various groups 
of reckless adventurers, many of them accomplished swindlers 
from the East, who are temporarily dwelling in a wild mining 
region, where the gentler arts of life are unknown and w^here 
chance and accident are normal conditions. From these 
groups Bret Harte selected a few men and painted their portraits 
with telling effect. Such characters as Hamlin, Oakhurst, 
Yuba Bill, and Colonel Starbottle one does not easily forget. 

The secret of Bret Harte's success lies in the happy union 
of essentially different elements of character in the transition 
period of an uncommonly picturesque section. The older 
civilization came in contact with the newer; contrasts resulted; 
incongruities of situation and character abounded. Out of 
these diverse elements Bret Harte made his short stories, 
and opened the West to literature. The structure of any 
given story conforms to the principles already laid down by 
Poe — definiteness of effect with economy of language; the 
narrative begins at once and proceeds straight to the climax; 
the totality of impression is complete. The style is urbane, 
suggestive of slight, though sympathetic, detachment, and 
faintly tinged with irony except in the conclusion, which is 
usually serious, sometimes sentimental in the manner of 
Dickens, who was Harte's master. The American's humor is 
more restrained and intellectual than the Englishman's; the in- 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 383 

congmity never borders on the grotesque, nor is it ever out- 
breakingly comic. The panoramic hfe depicted had its melo- 
dramatic features; this must be taken into account in judging 
Harte's short stories. At his best he is artistic; his material 
demanded coloring, sentiment, sensation, if the treatment was 
to be impressive. However highly idealized some of the 
characters may be, the effect as a whole is genuinely realistic. 
Bret Harte wrote a number of poems of excellent quality. 
The best-knoTVTi of these are ''Dickens in Camp," 'The Heathen 
Chinee,", ''John Burns of Gettysburg," and "The Society upon 
the Stanislaus." The first poem is a tribute to the power of 
Dickens over the men in a mining camp, to whom in the 
flickering firelight the youngest of their number 

read aloud the book ,wherein the Master 
Had writ of "Little Nell." 

This poem, wTitten in 1870 when Harte heard of the novehst's 
death, is full of melody and restrained emotion. Of the 
humorous verse, "The Society upon the Stanislaus" is perhaps 
as typical as any. Truthful James tells of the row which broke 
up their scientific society: 

Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see 
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same Society, 
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones 
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones. 

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstinicted there, 
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare; 
And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the i-ules. 
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules. 

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault, 
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault; 
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown, 
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town. 

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when 

A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen, 

And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, 

And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. 



384 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

This last line is an illustration of the kind of humor — a form of 
absurd understatement — in which Bret Harte is very skillful 
both in his stories and verse. 

Occasionally his poetry shows a beauty of rhythm and a 
sustained intensity of passion worthy of the great singers; as, 
for instance, in this lyric entitled ''Not Yet": 

Not yet, friend, not yet! the patient stars 
Lean from their lattices, content to wait. 
All is illusion till the morning bars 
Slip from the levels of the Eastern gate. 
Night is too young, friend! day is too near; 
Wait for the day that maketh all things clear. 
Not yet, O love, not yet! 

Not yet, O love, not yet! all is not true. 
All is not ever as it seemeth now. 
Soon shall the river take another blue. 
Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow. 
What lieth dark, O love, bright day will fill; 
Wait for thy morning, be it good or ill. 
Not yet, love, not yet! 

American Humor. — American humor has contributed to the 
gayety of nations and has greatly relieved the tedium of daily 
life at home and abroad. Every country has its own type of 
humor, but it would be incorrect to draw too sharp a line of 
distinction between national types. American humor in the 
beginning was simply a development of English humor under 
pioneer conditions; the struggles necessary to settle and enlarge 
a new country gave rise to new situations which made jesting 
philosophers. Common sense, sj^mpathy, an eye for contrasts 
or incongruities, — these made a combination out of which 
sprang the product called Am^erican humor. This humor, 
psychologically considered, was evolved as a relief for the 
strain and tension of life. It is a well-known fact that many 
of the world's greatest jokers have been at heart melancholy 
men; the reaction from intense seriousness is in the direction 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 385 

of extravagant, boisterous, and sometimes even grotesque, 
mirth. A nervous, high-strung, and ideaHstic people like the 
Americans must find their safety valve in forms of more or less 
outbreaking humor. 

Some of the elements of American humor are exaggeration, 
incongruity, surprise, irreverence. These do not appear so 
startlingly in the works of what we call the standard writers — 
Irving, Holmes, Lowell, — as in the productions of such pro- 
fessional ^ 'funny men" as Petroleum V. Nasby (David R. 
Locke), Bill Nye, Artemus Ward (Charles F. Browne), and 
Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw). Irving's and Holmes's 
humor is more like the classic English kind of Addison and 
Steele, though Holmes's humor has a shrewdness and a sparkle 
unlike that of his early contemporary. Lowell's Biglow 
Papers is genuine American humor; it is political satire in 
dialect and has a flavor of the soil; this explains its vogue 
in Europe. The once exceedingly popular Artemus Ward, 
with his sudden and surprising turns of phrase and his calmly 
irreverent treatment of persons and things usually regarded 
as more or less sacred, and Josh Billings, with his acute com- 
ments clothed in phonetic spelling, represent American humor 
in its progress toward fruition in Mark Twain. Josh Billings, 
though not as amusing as Artemus Ward, was the wisest of 
the minor humorists, for his sayings were based on sound 
philosophy; the uncouth spelling arrested the eye, but the hard 
common sense of the proverb caught the mind. 

Two of Ward's sayings will illustrate his manner: ''Always 
live within your income, if you have to borrow money to do it"; 
"Mr. Ward will pay no debts of his own contracting" (a line 
printed on the show-bill of one of his humorous lectures). 
Two "wise saws" of Billings will serve as a sample of his method : 
"There is a hundred different kinds ov religion, but only one 
kind ov piety"; "It is better to kno less than to kno so mutch 
that ain't so." 



386 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Humor, it must be remembered, is partly a fashion, and 
therefore subject in a measure to the obUvion which overtakes 
hterary fads. If, however, humor be based on truth — -as 
Bilhngs said it must be — and expressed artistically, it belongs 
to literature. All the elements of American humor just men- 
tioned are abundantly illustrated in the works of Mark Twain, 
our foremost national humorist. 

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (1835-1910) 

His Life. — Samuel L. Clemens, universally known as Mark Twain, 
was bom at the village of Florida, Missouri, in 1835, of Virginia 
ancestry. Before he was three years old his father moved to Han- 
nibal, a Missouri town on the Mississippi thirty miles from his 
birthplace. In this place were spent his boyhood years. He attended 
the public school at Hannibal until he was twelve, when, owing to 
the death of his father, he went to work in a printing office. During 
the next seven or eight years he followed the printer's trade, going 
East meanwhile and working in New York and Philadelphia. At 
twenty- one he began an apprenticeship on a Mississippi River 
steamboat, and in less than two years he was a licensed pilot at a 
salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month. 

War broke out in 1861 and Clemens served for a short while in the 
Confederate army; that same year his brother was appointed sec- 
retary to the territorial governor of Nevada. The war had inter- 
fered with commerce, his occupation as steamboat pilot was gone, 
and the lure of the frontier westward was strong. Accordingly in 
1861 he went along with his brother to Nevada; the journey and 
'many subsequent experiences are related in Roughing It. In the six 
or seven years spent in the far West he tried mining, reporting, and 
editorial work on papers in Nevada and San Francisco. In the latter 
city he met Bret Hai-te and other earlier writers of the Pacific 
slope. After an experience of several months as a newspaper re- 
porter in the Hawaiian Islands, and after he had been on the lecture 
platfoiTti a little while, he made an extended journey through 
Europe and the Holy Land. The letters written for a newspaper 
on this trip were later worked over into Innocents Abroad, his first 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 387 

book. Previous to this, however, Clemens had contributed humor- 
ous sketches to periodicals under the penname^ by which he is 
everywhere known. 

In 1871 he settled in Hartford, Connecticut, whither he had gone 
from Buffalo, New York, where for two or three years he had edited 
a paper and where he had married. In Hartford, New York City, 
and Redding, Connecticut, he spent the rest of his life. In 1884 he 
became a partner in the publishing firm of Charles L. Webster & 
Co.; in the failure of this firm some years later he lost all his 
money. Like Sir Walter Scott under similar circumstances, he went 
to work with a right good will; he traveled, wrote, lectured; he suc- 
ceeded in paying the firm's indebtedness, and at his death left a con- 
siderable estate. Three years before his death he was given an 
honorary degree by the University of Oxford. He made many trips 
abroad and was regarded almost as a world figure. The death of 
his wife and daughter, to whom he was tenderly attached, brought 
sadness to his last years. He died in 1910 at Redding, Connecticut. 

His Personality. — Mark Twain had a somewhat picturesque 
personality. His clear-cut features, his heavy shock of hair, 
his drawling speech, his white serge suit, are familiar to this 
generation. There was an element of coarseness mingled with 
his artistic sensibility, such as one finds, for instance, in the 
Elizabethans and other writers of great vitality. His early 
associations with rough primitive folk on the Mississippi and 
in the new West will partly account for his proneness to pro- 
fanity and broad jesting. Though he lived much of his life 
in the East, he was unmistakably a western product. 

In him were to be found the contradictory traits common to 
humorists. On the one hand were his generous enthusiasms 
for the weak and oppressed, his hatred of shams, his warm 
friendships with sincere and manly men; on the other, his 
childish prejudices, his bitter dislikes of certain persons and 
institutions shown in many unreasoning attacks, as, for example, 
his belief that Scott's novels gave rise to certain feudal ideals 
in the South. There was a vein of deep tenderness in him, 

*The name "Mark Twain" (a river phrase for two fathoms of water) had been used as a 
signature by an old pilot on the Mississippi, named Sellers, in articles to newspapers. Clemens 
wrote a burlesque of these articles to a New Orleans paper over this penname, which he there- 
after appropriated. 



388 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of unsuspecting seriousness, occasionally expressing itself in 
poetic prose — as in his tribute to his daughter Jean — and in 
his chivalric defense of Joan of Arc. He had the temperament 
of the ideaHst with its attendant streak of mental irresponsi- 
bility; but in assuming and paying the debts of the publishing 
firm of which he was a member, he gave the world a fine practi- 
cal evidence of his high sense of honor. 

His Works. — The first writing of Mark Twain to attract 
general attention was 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of 
Calaveras County," as pubUshed in a New York paper in 1867; 
before this he had edited and contributed to western papers and 
had won local renown as a humorist. The account of the 
vain efforts at jumping of the shot-filled frog, the incongruity 
of namiug him Daniel Webster, and the absurdity of the 
remark that he shrugged his shoulders like a Frenchman 
when he tried to raise himself from the ground, struck the 
reader as exceedingly funny. Two years later Innocents 
Abroad was pubUshed and enjoyed a wide popularity; the 
American pubHc had never seen such a book, and they wanted 
more. In 1872 Roughing It appeared. This is a narrative 
of Mark Twain's early experiences in the West and is a vivid 
transcript of contemporary life in that picturesque region. 
Other important works in the order of pubhcation are: The 
Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp Abroad, (1880), 
The Prince and the Pauper (1882), Life on the Mississippi 
(1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Con- 
necticut Yankee in King Arthur^ s Court (1889), The Tragedy 
of Pudd^nhead Wilson (1894), Personal Recollections of Joan 
of Arc (1896), Following the Equator (1897). Besides these 
he wrote many sketches of one kind and another, but the 
works enumerated are his main contributions to the literature 
of personal reminiscence, humor, and satire. The Gilded Age 
(1873), written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 389 




SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) 



390 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

contains one famous character, Col. Mulberry Sellers, promoter 
of big schemes. His favorite remark was: ''There's millions 
in it!" 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckle- 
berry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi demand special com- 
ment. These books are more or less autobiographical; they 
record youthful experiences and observations in the Mississippi 
Valley. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are two of the best 
boys' books ever written. The first depicts the hfe of a healthy 
boy in a Missouri town on the Mississippi River when the 
author was living there; Tom Sawyer, he tells us, is "a. combina- 
tion of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew." He 
says, furthermore, that ''most of the adventures recorded in 
this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my 
own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine." 
The story's faithfulness to boy nature indicates that it was 
largely based on fact and that Mark Twain was himself the 
main boy in it. The whitewashing of the fence has become a 
classic incident in American literature. Huckleberry Finn is 
the story of the adventures along the Mississippi of a friend of 
Tom Sawyer. This is a maturer book than Tom Sawyer, with 
more unity and deeper underlying philosophy, and is regarded 
by many as Mark Twain's masterpiece. Boy nature is shown 
in contact with great outdoor natural forces — of which the 
mighty river is chief — and the spirit of the story in its larger 
aspects is almost epic. "It is a permanent picture," says 
Professor Phelps, ^ "of a certain period of American history, 
and this picture is made complete, not so much by the striking 
portraits of individuals placed on the huge canvas, as by the 
vital unity of the whole composition." 

Mark Twain considered Life on the Mississippi his greatest 
work. The best part of it is a record of his impressions when 
he was journeying up and down the river in the pilot-house 

^William Lyon Phelps: Essays on Modern Novelists, p. 110. 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 391 

No other such graphic picture exists of the varied and interest- 
ing life on and along the Mississippi in the middle of the nine- 
teenth century. These experiences profoundly influenced the 
great humorist; there are passages in this book which border 
on poetry; the humor is more subdued and the style more 
finished than is usual with Mark Twain. Evidently he was 
writing out of his heart about a memorable bit of personal 
history. Along with Life on the Mississippi should be 
mentioned a later work, Pudd'nhead Wilson. This is the last 
of the four books on the Mississippi Valley, ingenious but less 
powerful than the others. 

Of the other works of Mark Twain the satire on medieval 
chivalry, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and 
the historical novel, Joan of Arc, merit brief mention. In 
the first he takes off the romantic treatment of the middle 
ages found in Malory's Morte d' Arthur, proving to his own 
satisfaction the vast superiority of the modern age of science 
to the ''days of old when knights were bold." One of his pet 
aversions was Walter Scott's idealistic handling of chivalry, 
and in this book he ridicules that institution; this is of course 
only another illustration of the irreverence of American humor. 
Mark Twain's best serious work is Joan of Arc. Here he 
appears in the r61e of defender of the Maid of Orleans, whom 
he ardently admired and to whom he pays worthy tribute in 
a series of memoirs purporting to have been written by her 
secretary. 

His Humor and Literary Characteristics. — Beginning his 
literary career as a newspaper writer, Mark Twain wrote out 
of a varied personal experience for the average reader. There 
was nothing academic about his subject matter and his style; 
his writing had to be concrete and vital if it was to count; it 
had to be grounded in common sense. These are the funda- 
mental qualities of his humor of exaggeration, incongruity, and 
surprise. However much he may overstate, however closely 



392 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

he may join dissimilar ideas, however sharp and unexpected 
may be the transition from the serious to the absurd, at bottom 
one is apt to find a grain of sound philosophy, a clear under- 
standing of human nature, and sometimes a vein of idealism. 
It is not delicate humor; it is often positively lacking in refine- 
ment — outspoken, uproarious, overwhelming, abounding in 
daring tilts at people and things on sacred pedestals, full of 
irreverent jibes and spectacular burlesque, the outbursts of a 
modern Cervantes bent on wrecking antique air-castles. 

But it is not all mad jesting; w^hen he wished, Mark Twain 
could be a respectable historian and philosopher. From the 
whitewashing incident in Tom Sawyer he impresses the lesson 
that ^'in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only 
necessary to make the thing difficult to attain"; and that 
''Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and 
Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." Now 
and then one finds an earnest Emersonian sentiment like this: 
"The illusions are the onlj^ things that are valuable, and God 
help the man who reaches the time when he meets only the 
realities." The tone of the later books is in general of a higher 
order than that of the earlier works. 

It is too early to attempt to fix Mark Twain's place in 
American literature. As an original interpreter of significant 
phases of American life^the interesting Mississippi Valley 
region of primitive times and the crude j^oung West — he is 
sure of immortality. Much in his books that seemed funny 
to his own generation will not seem so to posterity; the appeal 
of genuine incongruity, however, is as lasting as human nature 
itself, and incongruity is the essence of Mark Twain's humor. 
We have at last come to realize that this humorist has enduring 
literary qualities: his style at its best is clear, simple, direct, 
and sometimes tinged with poetic coloring; he followed his 
own rule in regard to the adjective (a rule to be commended to 
young writers) — ''As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike 
it out." In the writing of English he attained artistic excel- 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 393 

lence. As a literary man his fame has steadily grown, and 
it is evident that he has made no inconsiderable contribution 
to American literature. 

INDIANA WRITERS 

James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1916).— James Whitcomb 
Riley was born at Greenfield, Indiana, in 1853. He attended 
the public schools, but did not go to college. Early in life he 
became familiar with the rural life and language of his native 
state through his wanderings as a sign-painter, actor, and 
musician, an experience that gave him material for his poems 
and stories later on. In the early seventies he contributed 
verses, in the Hoosier dialect, to several papers, and shortly 
afterward became editor of a newspaper in Anderson, Indiana. 
Riley's imitative cleverness is shown in his contribution to 
another Indiana paper of a poem, 'Xeonainie," in the manner 
of Poe, which was accompanied by an editorial statement to 
the effect that it had been found on the fly-leaf of an old book 
brought from Virginia. The hoax was explained by the paper 
after many people had been deceived. Riley later became a 
contributor to the Indianapolis Daily Journal, and in 1883 
published a collection of poems. The Ole Swimmin' Hole and 
'Leven More Poems. There followed in rapid succession 
volume after volume of verse, some in the Hoosier dialect and 
others in standard English, finally collected in the large Bio- 
graphical Edition of his complete works. For many years 
Riley had made his home at Indianapolis, whither came a 
steady stream of admirers from far and near, who vied with 
the people of his home city in doing honor to the most loved 
American poet since Longfellow. He received literary degrees 
from Wabash College, Indiana University, Yale, and the 
University of Pennsylvania. 

As a lecturer and interpreter of his own poems, Riley de- 
lighted audiences in various parts of the country. His winsome 



394 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 




JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

personality shines in his verses, and it is easy to understand 
why children as well as older people were drawn to the man; 
they could understand his poetry, for it was made of the stuff 
of daily life and it reflected the minor emotions of the average 
human being, whose world is primarily one of sentiment rather 
than of thought. Simplicity and genuine humanness character- 
ize all that Riley has written, whether he sings of childhood or 
of age. He is fond of rural life and natural men and women 
unspoiled by artificial conditions; for such and of such his verse 
is made. Humor, pathos, and wholesome sentiment form the 
warp and woof of his poetry, and his philosophy is of the 
cheerful, common-sense kind. Certainly, no one has surpassed 
him in the Ufehke portrayal of the people and speech of his own 
native region. Few poems in a minor key are better known 
to the American reader — the man or woman who is not much 
given to reading poetry— than '*A Life Lesson" ("There! 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 395 

little girl, don't cry!"), "The Old Man and Jim," "Little 
Orphant Annie" ("The Gobble-uns '11 git you"), "Ike Walton's 
Prayer," "The Raggedy Man," and the fine love tribute, 
"When She Comes Home." So well known, indeed, are these 
and dozens of others that it is unnecessary to reproduce a 
specimen of Riley's verse here, a tribute of omission which can 
be paid to few poets. Riley's verse is read and loved, while 
that of greater poets is often admired and left unread by the 
multitude. The titles of several of Riley's volumes are them- 
selves sufiiciently alluring to win affection: Flying Islands 
of the Night, Green Fields and Running Brooks, An Old Sweet- 
heart of Mine, Knee-deep in June, A Song of Long Ago, The 
Book of Joyous Children. No wonder this poet was idohzed by 
children, for he entered the kingdom of poetry by keeping 
fresh within him the heart of childhood. He is the laureate of 
childhood and of the common heart. 

Edward Eggleston (1837-1902).— Edward Eggleston is 
noteworthy for his sketches and stories of pioneer life in Indiana. 
Born at Vevay, of Virginia ancestry, he spent the first thirty- 
three years of his life amid the scenes which he described; he 
was an itinerant Methodist minister, agent of a Bible society, 
and an editor of Sunday-school papers in Chicago. His work 
made it necessary for him to travel over several states of the 
Middle West and furnished material for his earlier and most 
interesting volumes. In 1870 he went to New York to live, and 
here he wrote a number of historical works. Eggleston 's best- 
known book is The Hoosier Schoolmaster, the incidents and 
characters of which, as his brother George Cary Eggleston 
tells us, were largely drawn from life. Other entertaining 
stories of early times in the region north of the Ohio are The 
Circuit Rider, Roxy, The Hoosier Schoolboy, and The Graysons. 
These books smack of the soil, and aside from their interest as 
stories are valuable for the light they throw on pioneer con- 
ditions in Indiana. Eggleston had the instinct of a historian 
and his sense of accuracy sometimes chilled his imagination. 



396 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Lew Wallace (1827-1905).— Another Indiana writer, General 
Lew Wallace, is famous as the author of one remarkably 
popular book, Ben Hut, a Tale of the Christ .(1880), which has 
proved as successful in a dramatized form as in the original 
form of a romance. Wallace was a lawyer of Craw^fordsville 
who served with distinction in the Mexican War and the War 
between the States. His first story, The Fair God, was published 
in 1873; it is an Aztec romance, suggested in part at least by 
the reading of Prescott's histories. His later novel. The 
Prince of India (1893), was the outcome of his residence at 
Constantinople while minister to Turkey. These novels show 
the author's interest in archaeology, of which he was a careful 
student. Wallace did not use western material, but drew his 
incidents and characters from foreign sources of a romantic 
nature. He had the gift of dramatic portrayal, and was able 
to invest bygone epochs and persons with an atmosphere of 
thrilling romance. What his books lack in genuine art is partly 
supplied by their ethical soundness and their realistic pictures 
of the past. In the latter respect he resembles the English 
novelist, Bulwer-Lytton. 

Maurice Thompson (1844-1901). — Maurice Thompson is 
sometimes classified as a Southern writer because he spent part 
of his early life in the South and served through the wai- in the 
Confederate araciy; he was born in Indiana, however, and 
this was his home for most of his life. He was a man of versa- 
tile talent; he practised law, took an active interest in politics, 
was a civil engineer, and was for several years state geologist 
of Indiana; later he was on the editorial staff of the New York 
Independent. Among his prose writings the best-known work 
is Alice of Old Vincennes (1900), a romance of the Revolution. 
Besides novels he wrote books on archery and other sports, 
Hterary criticism, history, and natural science. Thompson 
is, moreover, the author of excellent lyric poetry; his poetic 
love of nature is seen in such volumes as By-ways and Bird- 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 397 

NoteSj Sylvan Secrets, and Songs of Fair Weather. The atmos- 
phere of his poems and nature studies is that of Southern field 
and wood. The quantity and variety of his writing naturally 
affected the quality of it. 

John Hay (1838-1905). — John Hay was born in Indiana, but 
after his graduation at Brown University he studied law in 
Illinois and practised in Springfield. Here he knew Lincoln, 
whose private secretary he became in 1861. In Washington, 
New York (where he was for a time editorial writer on the 
Tribune), Cleveland, and in Europe (as ambassador), he 
spent the rest of his life. He was Secretary of State under 
McKinley and Roosevelt. John Hay made his reputation 
chiefly as a statesman, but he had the temperament of a 
literary man, and should be included in a history of American 
literature because he wrote Pike County Ballads (1871), 
Castilian Days, and The Breadwinners (1883), besides numerous 
essays and poems. He will also be remembered for his share 
in Nicolay and Hay's monumental Life of Lincoln. In the 
volume called Pike County Ballads certain early western types 
are depicted in vigorous and picturesque speech; two poems 
'^Jim Bludso" and 'Xittle Breeches," have become famous. 
The Breadwinners, first published serially in the Century 
Magazine, was anonymous, but while never formally acknowl- 
edged by Hay, it is known to have been his work. It is the 
first important American novel to deal seriously with the 
relation of capital and labor and was exceedingly popular in 
its day. Castilian Days is a volume of essays and sketches on 
Spanish life, as Hay saw it while he held a diplomatic position 
at Madrid. 

Booth Tarkmgton (1869 ). — One of the most popular 

American novelists of this generation is Newton Booth Tarking- 
ton, of Indianapolis. Educated in his native state and at 
iPrinceton, he early turned to authorship and in 1899 published 



398 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



his first novel, The Gentleman from Indiana. Other works 
rapidly followed: Monsieur Beaucaire (1900), The Two 
Vanrevels (1902), The Conquest of Canaan (1905), His Own 
People (1907). Numerous other volumes have appeared, in- 
cluding Penrod, The Turmoil, Seventeen, The Magnificent 
Ambersons, and Ramsey Milholland. Besides his novels, Mr. 
Tarkington has written a number cf actable plays either alone 




'^^v 



BOOTH TARKINGTON 



or in collaboration, and he has dramatized his early story, 
Monsieur Beaucaire. The scenes of his stories are in the 
region he perfectly knows, his own Indiana; they are usually 
light transcripts of contemporary urban society with inter- 
esting plots. He is particularly successful in dealing with 
youth, as the immense popularity of Penrod and Seventeen 
testifies. He is a delightful social satirist whose ironic humor, 
graphic delineation of character, and sure sense for dramatic 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 399 

situation and incident, give his novels the flavor of clever 
comedies of manners. While these stories have distinct local 
coloring, they are not provincial but general in their appeal. 
Few of our novelists have been able to portray human nature, 
and especially that species of it called boy-nature, with such 
Hghtness of touch and such keenness of penetration. 

Other Indiana Writers. — Other natives of Indiana who are 
well known as authors are Albert Jeremiah Beveridge (1862- 
), long a senator from his state, w^hose Life of John Mar- 
shall is one of the principal biographies of American literature, 
being a marvelously vivid picture of the early republic; 

Meredith Nicholson (1866 ), of Indianapolis, who has 

written essays, poems, and such popular novels as The House 
of a Thousand Candles (1905), The Port of Missing Men (1907), 
A Hoosier Chronicle (1912), Otherwise Phyllis (1913), and, 

Blacksheep! Blacksheep! (1920); George Ade (1866 ) 

author of Fables in Slang, The Slim Princess, and a number of 
successful plays on college and society themes; Theodore 

Dreiser (1871 ), now a resident of New York City, who 

has written novels, plaj^s, and short stories — Sister Carrie 
(1900), Jennie Gerhardt (1911), The Genius (1915), A Hoosier 
Holiday (1916), Free and Other Stories (1918) — depicting life 
more naturalistically than most American fiction; David 
Graham Philllps (1867-1911), author of The Social Secretary, 
The Second Generation, The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua 
Craig, and other novels; and Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter 

(1868^ ), who has written entertainingly of birds and other 

outdoor friends. 

OTHER WESTERN AUTHORS 

Helen Hunt Jackson (1831-1885).— Mrs. Helen Hunt 
Jackson (who signed herself "H. H." on the title-pages of her 
books) is noted for her ardent championship of the Indian in 



400 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

two works, A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884). 
She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, but spent the last 
ten years of her life in Colorado and California. In A Century 
of Dishonor she arraigned the United States government for 
its treatment of the Indians. The book which made her 
reputation as a novelist, however, is Ramona, the setting of 
which is southern California; the wrongs of the Indian are 
conspicuously introduced; Indian and Spanish characters are 
cleverly portrayed, and the local color is pleasingly reflected. 
The book is intense in its moral earnestness, and shows the 
Puritan indignation at racial oppression. Besides these 
works, Mrs. Jackson wrote some delightful sketches of the old 
California Missions and a number of lyric poems on nature, 
love, and reUgion. 

. Hamlin Garland (1860 ). — As representative of the later 

story-writers of the Middle West, Hamlin Garland may be 
briefly considered. He was born in Wisconsin, but after 
living for a while in the East became identified with Chicago. 
His distinctive contribution to American literature is the 
portrayal of country life in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other 
western states. Garland is a realist, and his stories reproduce 
the somewhat prosaic life on the vast stretches of the region of 
which he is a native. The public first came to know him 
through his volume of short stories entitled Main-Travelled 
Roads (1890); other books are Jason Edwards, Prairie Folks, 
The Eaglets Heart, and Hesper. Realist though he is, Hamlin 
Garland has come more and more to mingle the softening 
atmosphere of romance with pictures of the daily grind of 
life. His loyalty to the West and his belief in the literary 
future of that section may be seen in this confident prediction : 
''It is my sincere Icon viction that the interior is to be henceforth 
the real America. From these interior spaces of the South 
and West the most vivid and fearless and original expression 
of the future American democracy will come.^' Garland's 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 401 

latest work, A Son of the Middle Border, is an account of the 
author's own early struggles, one of the most interesting 
* 'human documents" in American literature. 

Jack London (1876-1916). — Into his brief life of forty years, 
Jack London, a native of California and a citizen of the world, 
crowded an astonishing amount of activity. Leaving college 
to go the Klondike, he continued his adventures by sea and 
land in Japan, Russia, Canada, the South Seas, and almost 
everywhere else that held a mysterious spot of the unexplored. 
In his love of perilous places and the thrill of discovery he was 
like the Elizabethans, restless and intensely vital. The call of 
the wild he always heard. These experiences he has recorded 
in twenty-five or thirty volumes of short stories, romances, 
and sketches; some of this is pure fiction, but much of it has a 
basis of fact. Representative works are : The Call of the Wild, 
The Sea-Wolf, Moon-Face, White Fang, The Children of the 
Frost, Martin Eden, The Strength of the Strong, The Star Rover, 
The Mutiny of the Elsinore. London had the journahstic in- 
stinct, with the imagination of the poet and the virility of the 
pioneer. At his best he is an original and vigorous writer, 
whose work will continue to appeal to that large number of 
readers who like to follow the exciting struggles of men with 
wild nature. 

Another lover of rugged outdoor life is Stewart Edward 

White (1873^ ), a native of Michigan but now a resident of 

California. He has written many books about the forest and 
the mountains, the joys of camping, the excitements of follow- 
ing the wilderness trail. No one has more enchantingly un- 
folded the mysteries of vast stretches of woodland, plain, and 
valley. The reading of such volumes as The Magic Forest, 
Camp and Trail, Arizona Nights, The Gray Dawn, The River- 
man, gives one a desire to seek the freedom and the silence of 
the woods. 



402 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Other Western Story- Writers. — The importance of the West in 
literature is shown by the increasing number of men and women 
who are putting into their pages the salient features of that section, 
the resources of which for artistic use are almost inexhaustible. 
Not all of these w^riters may be mentioned here, but only such as 

seem most truly representative. Mary Hallock Foote (1847 ), 

who has lived in Colorado, California, and Idaho, has written novels 
dealing with the mining camp and the hills — The Led Horse Claim 
and Coeur d' Alene; Mary Hartwell Catherwood (1847-1902) of 
Ohio and Illinois, is the author of several novels on the settlement 
of the region about the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi, inspired 
in part by the reading of Parkman's histories; Alice Frej^ch (1850- 

), better known by her penname of Octave Thanet, lives in 

Iowa, which, together with a comer of Arkansas familiar to her, 
is the setting of such stories as Knitters in the Sun, Stories of a 
Western Toxvn, The Heart of Toil, and The Man of the Hour; Gertrude 
Athertox (1850 ), a native of California, depicted old Cali- 
fornia life in her earlier long and short stories — The Calif ornians, The 
Splendid Idle Forties, and Ancestors, — though she is better known 
through her later novels The Aristocrats and The Conqueror; Ambrose 
Bierce (1842-1915), of San Francisco, is the author of short stories 
of soldier life and of the supernatural, collected in the volumes In 
the Midst of Life and Can Such Things Be? and of a number of 

satirical poems; Hpxry Blake Fuller (1854 ), of Chicago, has 

pictured the social life of that city in The Cliff Dwellers and With the 
Procession. 

Three later writers are Fistley Peter Dun^te (1867 ), Robert 

Herrick (1868 ), and Fraxk Norris (1879-1902), all of Chicago. 

Dunne is famous over the world as the author of Mr. Dooley's Philos- 
ophy, which has been hailed as distinctly an American product, 
although Hibernian in dialect. Herrick is a professor of English in 
the University of Chicago, and has written several well wrought-out 
novels — The Web of Life, The Common Lot, and The Master of the 
Inn — ^which deal with modem social problems in and around that 
great center. Herrick is a native of Cambridge, Mass., and a 
graduate of Harvard. Norris wrote two realistic novels — The 
Octopus and The Pit — in a projected series of three on "the epic of 
the wheat," when death cut short his promising career. His idea 
was to trace, as it were, the life of the great western cereal from 
sowing to world-distribution. The Octopus te)ls of the sowing and 
hai-vesting; The Pit depicts the selling of the grain in the Chicago 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 403 

Board of Trade; the last of the trilogy, which was to be called The 
Wolf, would have pictured its distribution in Europe in the midst of 
a Russian famine. Throughout the volumes there mns a large epic 

suggestion. William Allex White (1869 ), of Kansas, is the 

author of short stories and novels — The Court of Boyville, In Our 
Town, A Certain Rich Man, The Old Order Changeth, In the Heart of a 
Fool — dealing with social questions and somewhat journalistic in 

tone. Upton Sinclair (1878 ), a native of Baltimore but now 

a resident of California, has written novels — The Jungle (1906), The 
Money-Changers, The Overman, King Coal (1917) — and a number of 
plays and essays, which are concerned with social and industrial 

reform. Ernest Poole (1880 — ), of Chicago and New York, is 

the author of several strong novels dealing with social and economic 
questions in a thoughtful manner — The Harbor (1915), His Family 
(1917), His Second Wife (1918). Both Sinclair and Poole are 
socialists. 

THE POETS 

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887).— Edward Rowland Sill 
was a native of New England, but he lived and wrote in the 
West. He was born at Windsor, Connecticut, educated at 
Yale, was a business man in California for some years, returned 
East and studied at the Harvard Divinity School; he then 
decided to devote his life to teaching; he first taught in Ohio, 
then at Oakland, California, and from 1874 to 1882 was 
professor of English literature in the University of California; 
this position he resigned in 1882 because of failing health, and 
spent the last four years of his life in Ohio writing for the 
magazines, chiefly for the Atlantic Monthly. He died in 
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1887. Nearly all his verse was first pub- 
lished in magazines; a small collection from his poems was 
printed before his death; since then a three- volume edition has 
appeared; and finally a complete one- volume edition has made 
his works more familiar to the general public. 

Sill was an idealist of singularly pure and lovable personality. 
Though he spent most of his life in the West, he was essentially 
eastern in his culture and thinking; the strong ethical sensi- 



404 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

bility of the Puritans was in him, liberalized by modern thought 
and softened by an instinct for the beautiful in nature and in 
literature. His poetry reflects the doubts and aspirations of 
the last century, when science and philosophy were unsettling 
traditional standards and setting thoughtful men adrift; and 
yet the deep spiritual note of his best poems has in it the 
assurance of triumph. There is a steady progress in artistic 
workmanship and vital power from the 3^outhful poems to the 
last mature utterances; the restless tone of the earlier and 
middle periods, in which there are faint echoes of Emerson, 
Tennyson, and Arnold, becomes at last surer and more flexible; 
the moral quality is always strong, even when the sensuous 
verbal melody suggests Keats. 

Sill's longest poem is ''The Hermitage,'' which contains 
much nature description in varying meter and stanza; of 
moderate length is 'The Venus of Milo," an exquisite pro- 
duction in which are blended modern wistfulness and a sensitive 
appreciation of the charms of classic art. The short poems, 
including the sonnets, are the best; like most modern poets. 
Sill could not sustain himself long on the wing. His best- 
known poem is "The Fool's Prayer," the story of how the 
king's jester, bidden in mockery to make a prayer for the 
frivolous court after the royal feast, utters so earnestly the 
recurring petition, 

O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool! 

that at last 

The room was hushed; in silence rose 
The King, and sought his gardens cool, 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
"Be merciful to me, a fool." 

Along with this striking poem should be mentioned the oft- 
quoted "Opportunity": 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 405 

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: — 

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; 

And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 

Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 

Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 

A craven hung along the battle's edge. 

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel — 

That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this 

Blunt thing — !" he snapt and flung it from his hand, 

And lowering crept away and left the field. 

Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, 

And weaponless, and saw the broken sword. 

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand. 

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout 

Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down. 

And saved a great cause that heroic day. 

Poems of such quality as these entitle Edward Rowland Sill 
to be called one of the best of minor American poets. 

Eugene Field (1850-1895). — Quite a different kind of singer 
was Eugene Field, who has won a vast popularity by his 
appeal to lovers of childhood. He was born in St. Louis, of 
New England ancestry, spent his boyhood in Vermont, at- 
tended Williams College, Knox College, and the University of 
Missouri, but did not graduate; traveled abroad, and then did 
newspaper work in several western cities; finally in 1883 he 
became editor of the ' 'Sharps and Flats" column in the Chicago 
Daily News, holding this position until his death twelve years 
later. In this paper first appeared most of the poetry and 
prose later collected in his complete works. The poems of 
Field are in three series: A Little Book of Western Verse, 
Songs of Childhood, and Echoes from the Sabine Farm. The 
second of these volumes contains the poems by which Field 
is best known; the third is interesting as the successful effort 
of a poet of the people to adapt to democratic taste the verse 
of the Latin singer Horace. 



406 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Eugene Field was a genial, lovable, and humorous companion, 
fond of his friends, full of sentiment and sympathy, careless of 
his dollars, and a lover of practical jokes. He made his reputa- 
tion as a writer for the humorous column of a Chicago paper, 
into which he daily put a whimsical array of fun and philosophy. 

The mock - seriousness of 
much that he wrote often 
deceived his readers, a re- 
sult which delighted his 
own soul as well as the 
more sophisticated of his 
admirers. In standard liter- 
ature old ballads and ro- 
mances appealed to him, 
and, oddly enough, the odes 
of Horace struck his fancy. 
A hobby of his was book 
collecting, out of which 
grew his habit of adorning 
copies of his poems in the 
EUGENE FIELD coloriug of aucieut manu- 

scripts. 
In temperament Eugene Field was distinctly western; he 
loved the unconventional life of a newer and breezier section 
of America, and despite his New England lineage, the East 
was uncongenial to him. His kindly heart, his abounding love 
for children, his sentiment, and his bubbling joyousness, made 
him the happiest interpreter of the souls of the wee folk. The 
pathos of his verse is as prominent as the humor of it, the one 
shading into the other; sometimes, indeed, the sentiment is 
pressed too far, in the manner of Dickens; but, after all, the 
line between sentiment and sentimentality is hard to keep 
straight. No other American poet has given us so many 
lullabies or ministered so charmingly to the fairyland of the 
nursery. For a generation children — and grown people too/ 







WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 



407 



for that matter — have hstened and drowsed to the magic words 
of ^'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," been touched by the pathos 
of "Little Boy Blue," and made to smile sympathetically by 
the semi-humorous "Seein' Things at Night." In these 
poems of childhood Eugene Field has shown himself one of the 
friendliest souls in American letters; he has, moreover, brought 
literature and journalism close together. 




JOAQUIN MILLER 

Cincinnatus Heine ('Joaquin") Miller (1841-1912).— 

Though born in Indiana, Joaquin Miller ("Joaquin" was the 
nickname given him by certain friends, taken from the initial 
poem in an early volume of verse) went with his parents to 
Oregon as a child, and with that state and California his name 



408 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

is chiefly associated. He was, however, a great wanderer, 
visiting Central America and Europe, and living for a while 
in Washington City and elsewhere in the East. He was at one 
time or another a miner, reporter, editor, and judge; he lived 
for a time with the Indians; he wrote poems in England, where 
his first volume of verse was published. In dress Miller affected 
the unconventional, as did Whitman, and his pictures usually 
show him with velvet jacket and high boots and with the long 
hair once worn by poets and artists. Much of his earlier verse 
is faintly reminiscent of Scott and Byron, but he was too 
western to keep up this tribute of imitation. He was in spirit 
a pioneer; he had explored the valleys and streams of the far 
West until he thoroughly knew them. 

Songs of the Sierras, Songs of the Desert, Songs of the Sun- 
lands contain some of Miller's most characteristic poetry, 
though he wrote on more conventional subjects both in verse 
and prose. His diction grew simpler with age, and he recom- 
mended the use of short, natural words both for literary 
effectiveness and for economy. ''A man who uses a great, 
big, sounding word," said he, ''when a short one will do, is 
to that extent a robber of time. A jewel that depends greatly 
on its setting is not a great jewel. When the Messiah of 
American literature comes, he will come singing, so far as 
may be, in words of one syllable." He himself could hit off 
striking sentences, aS; for instance, in these lines from ^'West- 
wardHor 

bearded, stalwai-t, westmost men, 
So tower-like, so Gothic built! 
A kingdom won without the guilt 
Of studied battle that hath been 

Your blood's inheritance . . . Your heirs 
Know not your tombs: the great plowshares 
Cleave softly through the yellow loam 
Where you have made eternal home, 
And set no sign. Your epitaphs 
Are writ in furrows. 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 409 

One of his most stirring poems is ''Columbus," in which 
Miller seems to sense the destiny of America in the burden of 
this great song, ''On! Sail on!" 

William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910).— Born in Indiana, 
educated at Harvard, William Vaughn Moody spent the last 
seventeen years of his all too brief life in travel, study, and in 
teaching Enghsh at the University of Chicago. His culture 
was varied and vast. No one of our later American poets 
brought to his literary task so rare a genius for creation and 
so fine a consecration. To the general public Moody became 
known as the author of two prose dramas, The Great Divide 
and The Faith Healer^ which are discussed in the next chapter; 
but his permanent claim to recognition will more surely rest 
upon the high quality of his verse. He wrote two poetic 
dramas, lyrical in tone, The Masque of Judgment and The Fire- 
bringer, and left incomplete another. The Death of Eve. In 
these he gave to old Greek and Hebrew stories a modern 
interpretation, involving the eternal conflict between tradition 
and progress, with woman as the beneficent and reconciling 
agent. These dramatic poems are notable for originality of 
conception and for passages of lofty verse. Of his shorter 
poems, "Gloucester Moors," "The Daguerreotype" (a tribute 
to his mother), "On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines," and 
"An Ode in Time of Hesitation," are perhaps the best. "An 
Ode in Time of Hesitation" is the noblest patriotic ode in our 
literature since Lowell. Written in 1900, when the nation was 
formulating its policy as to Cuba and the Philippines, this 
poem gave warning to the government at Washington that a 
selfish attitude toward dependent peoples would bring reproach 
and doom to us. Moody's poetry is not easy reading: it 
assumes considerable knowledge on the part of the reader, 
there are many unusual words, and there is compactness of 
thought. The narrative element is small, and even the lyrics 
often lack simplicity: the subjective quality of the verse 



410 * AMERICAN LITERATURE 

suggests the scholar and the thinker, who is able to combine 
the old and the new with rare success. Moody was a consum- 
mate artist, and it is safe to say that his poetry will continue 
to grow in favor with discriminatmg minds. 

Other Western Poets. — Among western singers the following 
merit notice; several of them, indeed, in a more extended history of 
American literature than this would have more space. Stephen C. 
Foster (1826-1864), of Cincinnati, Ohio, is the author of several 
popular old songs— "Old Black Joe," "Old Folks at Home," and "My 
Old Kentucky Home"; Johi^ James Piatt (1835-1917), of Indiana arid 
Ohio, has written Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley; Johx Vakce 

Chexey (1848 ), of San Francisco and Chicago, has written 

numerous lyric poems — Thistle-Down, Wood-Blooms, etc.; Will Cahle- 

ton- (1845 ), of Michigan, has long been popular as a poet of 

country life, his best-knowTi volume being Farm Ballads and his best- 
known single poem, "Over the Hill to the Poor House"; Ella 
Wheeler Wilcox (1855-1919), a native of Wisconsin, has written 
much intense verse in the volumes. Poems of Passion, Pleasure, etc.; 

Edwix Markham (1852 ), bom in Oregon, is the author of one 

world-famous poem, "The Man with the Hoe" (1898), written while 
he was teaching in California, and of many other poems in lyric 
tone, graceful and polished. He now lives in New York. Richard 
BuRTOjf (1861 ), professor of English literature in the Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, has written poetry, essays, and works in dramatic 
criticism. Richard Hovey (1864-1900), a native of Illinois, was edu- 
cated at Dartmouth, became a journalist, and later taught at 
Barnard College, New York. He wrote much lyric and dramatic 
verse, his most elaborate work being Launcelot and Guenevere in four 
parts. He also wrote a number of lighter lyrics, published in the 
volume Songs from Vagahondia, to which he was joint contributor 
with his friend Bliss Carman, himself a minor poet of prominence. 
Hovey had decided poetic genius, and when death came he was 
beginning to get a sui'er grasp on his art. His poem entitled 
"Spring" is one of the breeziest on that hackneyed subject in 
American literature, vocal with the sounds of the open road and 
the woodland choirs; while his "The Call of the Bugles" and 
"Uumanifest Destiny" breathe the spirit of confident, militant 
patriotism, and will take their place among our most heartening 
martial lyrics. Hovey is the poet of great open spaces. 



WRITERS OF WESTERN STATES 411 

THE CHAPTER IN OUTLINE 

Story- Writers 

Bret Harte (1839-1902): Luck of Roaring Camp, Outcasts of 
Pokeir Flat, etc.; shoi-t stories of western mining camps. 

Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910) : Roughing It, Tom 
Sawyer, HucklebeiTy Finn, Life on the Mississippi, etc.; creator of 
the "Epic of the Mississippi." Foremost American humorist. 

Booth Tarkington: Monsieur Beaucaire, The Gentleman from 
Indiana, The Tunnoil, The Conquest of Canaan, Ramsey Milholland. 

Lew Wallace, Maurice Thompson, John Hay, Edward Eggleston, 
Hekn Hunt Jackson, Hamlin Garland, Jack London: stories of 
western life. 

Poets 
James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1916) : The Old Man and Jim, Lit- 
tle Orphant Annie, the Raggedy Man, and other poems. "Laureate 
of childhood and of the common heart." 

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887): The Fool's Prayer, Oppor- 
tunity, and other poems. 

Eugene Field (1850-1895) : Poet of childhood; sentiment, pathos, 
humor. 

Joaquin Miller: Poet of the Sierras. 

William Vaughn Moody: Scholarly poet and dramatist. 



Influence of magazines on literature; growth of realism in fiction 
and poetry; western picturesqueness and humor. 



dl2 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

SOME USEFUL BOOKS 

(Chapters VI and VII) 

Historical and SociaL — ^Roosevelt's The Winning of the West; 
Garrison's The Westward Movement; Turner's Rise of the New 
West; Channing's History of the United States; Hart's National 
Ideals Historically Traced; Mark Twain's Roughing It and Life on 
the Mississippi. 

Literary. — Alden's Magazine Writing and the New Literature; 
Howell's Criticism and Fiction; Bliss Perry's A Study of Prose 
Fiction (chapters on Realism, Romanticism, and the Short Story); 
Cooper's Some American Stoiy Tellers (Holt); Pattee's American 
Literature since 1870 (Century Co.). 

Howells and James. — Burt and Howells's The Howells Story Book; 
Brownell's American Prose Masters; Phelps's Essays on Modem 
Novelists; Canby's The Short Story in English. 

Walt Whitman. — Life by PeiTy, Carpenter, Piatt; critical studies 
by Noyes, Burroughs, R. L. Stevenson, and Symonds; Triggs's 
Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman. 

Bret Harte. — Life by Boynton, Pemberton; Erskine's Leading 
American Novelists; Smith's The American Short Stoiy; Canby's 
The Short Story in English; Thomas's Selections from Bret Harte's 
Poems and Stories (Houghton). 

Mark Twain. — Autobiography; Howells's My Mark Twain; 
Phelps's Essays on Modem Novelists. 

Eugene Field. — Burt and Cable's The Eugene Field Book, Thomp- 
son's Eugene Field (2 vols.). 

James Whitcomb Riley. — Complete works published by the Bobbs- 
Merrill Co. 

Joaquin Miller. — Complete works published by Harr-Wagner Pub- 
lishing Co. 

William Vaughan Moody. — Poems and Plays, 3 vols. Houghton. 
A complete edition of Sill's poems is published by Houghton. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE— DRAMATISTS 
AND POETS 

The Novel. — The history of American literature during the 
last years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the 
twentieth is mainly a record of the triumph of the novel and 
the short story. These two literary types have apparently lost 
none of their popularity: of all forms of literature they have 
proved the most democratic and adaptable, the least con- 
servative in tone, technique, and subject matter. It has been 
pointed out in previous chapters^ that the modern American 
novel began its career between 1870 and 1880 as a heightened 
transcript of sectional life in the West and the South, and 
was both realistic and romantic. Thus it was essentially the 
novel of regional coloring. Along with this species of fiction 
flourished the historical romance, old but ever young, depicting 
scenes and persons of a more or less remote past. Later, as 
our industrial, social, and political interests became more 
complex and absorbing, the novel naturally began to reflect 
those phases of thought and endeavor. It has consequently 
tended to become a popularized study of social and economic 
conditions. Bent upon the exploitation of certain theories, the 
novelist to-day cares less for plot and more for clever dialogue 
and convincing exposition. A good story well told is always 
interesting of course, but all the stories have been told, the 
novelist might argue, and thoughtful readers want new reac- 
tions : they do not ask for solutions. And so the writer of fiction 
proceeds to analyze where he was once content to narrate; 
much of our later fiction has suffered from this philosophizing. 

^See under Chapters IV, V, VI, VII, the discussion of later novelists. 

[413] 



414 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The perplexing problems in a great democracy, no longer 
provincial, arising from the clash of the individual with larger 
economic forces, have notably affected the tone and the content 
of the American novel. 

The Short Story. — The short story is thus far the most 
original contribution of American literature. In our short 
stories from Poe to O. Henry, all the qualities mentioned by 
Professor Brander Matthews^ as essential to the best of this 
literary type — compactness, originality, ingenuity, fantasy — 
are found, but those most conspicuous in the contemporary 
story are compactness and ingenuity. A small journalistic 
package cleverly and surprisingly done up — that is a fairly 
good figurative definition of a present-day short story. Stand- 
ardized by Poe and Hawthorne, this form of literature was 
localized by Bret Harte, journalized by O. Henry (William 
Sidney Porter), and then rapidly vulgarized by a vast horde of 
scribblers. 

The popularity of the novel and the short story shows no 
signs of waning, but there is abundant evidence that two old 
types of literature, the drama and poetry, have already become 
rivals of the first two in public esteem. Of the new drama and 
the new poetry we may now speak. 

THE DRAMA 

The drama as a form of American literature has not yet 
received adequate treatment. The older American drama was 
either an imitation or an importation: the old romantic 
tragedies, such as Thomas Godfrey's Prince of Parthia (1767), 
William Dunlap's Andre (1798), Robert Montgomery Bird's 
Broker of Bogota (1834), and Juha Ward Howe's Leonora (1857), 
closely followed seventeenth and eighteenth century English 
models, abounded in blood and thunder and soft melodrama, 
^The Philosophy of the Short Story, p. 72. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 415 

were in verse, and had persons and places remote from the 
world of reality. The Indian plays, popular betw^een 1820 
and 1850, were artificial in the extreme, in no sense comparable 
to Cooper's romances in portraying Indian character. The 
comedies, such as Roy all Tyler's Contrast (1787), and Anna 
Cora Ritchie's Fashion (1845), had genuine touches of humor 
and satire on American character and are more significant 
than the tragedies. Of the older tragedies, the most humanly 
appealing, and certainly the most artistic, is George Henry 
Boker's Francesca da Rimini (1855),^ which had revivals en 
the stage from time to time down to the earlier years of the 
present century. Of the comedies the most famous is of course 
Rip Van Winkle (1865), a mingling of domestic drama and 
fairy tale, immortalized by the acting of Joseph Jefferson. 
Aside from the long list of patriotic plays inspired by our two 
wars with Great Britain and our Civil War, most of which 
have never been published, the American stage was supplied 
by adaptations of English and French comedies until tbc 
advent of our first modern American dramatist, Bronscn 
Howard. 

Bronson Howard (1842-1908), pioneer of our contemporary 
drama, was a native of Detroit, Michigan, but spent most cf 
his life in New York City as a playwright. His first important 
play was Saratoga (1870), a farce-comedy of manners at that 
popular watering-place. Other very successful of his numerous 
comedies are: The Banker^ s Daughter, Old Love-Letters (a 
delightful one-act play). Truth, Kate, and Young Mrs. Wiri- 
throp. Shenandoah (1888), generally regarded as his most 
popular play, is one of the best of the Civil War dramas. The 
scenes are in Charleston, South Carolina, at the beginning of 
the war, later in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and 
finally in Washington City; and the central theme is the love 
of a Northern officer for a Southern girl, with the usual happy 

'See page 364. 



416 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

result. In his plays Bronson Howard was successful in util- 
izing subjects of contemporary interest in American life, which 
he touched with humor and an engaging human charm. He 
was a student of French drama, from which he adapted several 
plays, and a pleasing and suggestive dramatic critic. 

William Gillette (1855 ), a native of Connecticut and 

resident of New York, actor and playrv^ight, has a long hst 
of comedies and farces to his credit, a number still unpublished. 
Among his plays these may be mentioned as specially impor- 
tant: ^swera^da( 1881), founded on one of Mrs. Frances Hodgson 
Burnett's stories. Too Much Johnson, Held hy the Enemy, and 
Secret Service (1895). Held hy the Enemy and Secret Service 
are Civil War plays and develop the favorite old subject of 
the winning of a Southern girl by a Northern lover. *'In Secret 
Service,'' says Professor Quinn,^ '^Mr. Gillette carried to its 
highest point the conception of a cool, resourceful man of 
action." This sort of character appears in other plays of his, 
making them realistically American. The author himself 
acted in these plays with great success, and from his accurate 
knowledge of stage conditions he was able to make his comedies 
theatrically effective. 

Other successful actors and prolific playwrights of the last 
twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century are James A. 
Herne (1839-1901), author of Shore Acres (1892) and Sag 
Harbor (1900), sentimental domestic dramas of simple realism, 
once very popular; and Steele MacKaye (1842-1894), whose 
Hazel Kirhe (1880) achieved an immense success because of 
its wholesome qualities and its appeal to the elemental emotions. 
Steele MacKaye deserves to be remembered for his faithful 
work as a teacher of saner methods of dramatic interpretation 
and sounder principles of stage management. 
^Representative American Plays, p. 576. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 417 

3' -Oydb 'Fit<Jh (1865-1909), of New York, is so far the most 
-prolific of American pla^nvrights and in many respects the 
5 most successful, having produced in twenty years thirty-two 
original plays "and adapted or revised for the stage twenty- 
three others from foreign sources, mostly French and German. 
•In so brief a sketch as this it is not desirable to make a cata- 
logue of Fitch's plays, but several deserve a few words of 
conament as representative of the dramatist himself and of 
social struggles and ambitions, American and international. 
Nathan Hale, Barbara Frietchie, and Major Andre, as their 
names imply, treat of history and legend; The Truth,^ Her 
Great Match, and The Climbers, are social satires. The scene 
of Her Great Match is in England and the theme is the love 
affair between an American girl and a foreign prince, in which 
the maiden, true to her democratic instincts and breeding, 
treats her high-born lover in a charmingly natural way. The 
Truth develops the theme of the effect of a fibbing, flirting wife 
on her husband, her gradual entanglement in a mesh of false- 
hoods, and the final not very convincing reconciliation of 
husband and wife. The Climbers (1901) is an entertaining 
social satire on the ambitions of three fashionable city women, 
rhother and daughters, their heartless vanities, intemperance, 
gambling, and general deterioration. This is certainly one of 
Fitch's best plays; here, as in others, we have bright dialogue, 
effective situations, rapid movement, and an undercurrent of 
irony. Fitch's plays are not profound, but they are sparkling, 
actable social comedies of more than passing merit. 

Augustus Thomas (1859 ), a native of St. Louis and a 

resident of New Y^ork, has worked in railroad offices, served as 
writer for a number of newspapers, associated from his youth 
with theatrical people, and produced over forty plays ancl 
adaptations. Among his earlier plays are Alabama, In 
Mizzoura, and Arizona, the best series of "state" dramas yet 

^Representative American Plays, p. 576. 



418 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

presented; the most significant of his later productions are 
The Witching Hour (1907) and As a Man Thinks (1911). 
The Witching Hour has its scenes in Louisville and Washington 
City; its central theme is the influence of heredity and tele- 
pathy in determining the destinies of a group of individuals 
and revealing at critical moments the solution of intricate 
problems. The play grew out of the dramatist^s interest in 
certain occultisms which from time to time engage the popular 
mind; it is a clever conception, ingeniously worked out, but 
the play as a whole is too mechanically surprising to be con- 
vincing and too contemporary in spirit to win permanent 
interest. As a Man Thinks is a stronger play; it shows the 
reconciling influence of a cultured Jewish physician on an 
alienated husband and wife, involving the question of the 
double standard of morality. Mr. Thomas generally has a 
serious purpose in his dramas, his workmanship is both solid 
and artistic, and much of his material is thoroughly American. 

William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910) has already been dis- 
cussed in a previous chapter,^ though chiefly as a poet, but 
he is so important a dramatist that something more must be 
said about his plays. Moody wrote two poetic dramas. The 
Masque of Judgment (1900) and The Firebringer (1904), and 
projected a third. The Death of Eve (left incomplete); the 
trilogy deals with the relations of God and man and is a ming- 
ling of classical and Biblical imagery. Imaginative splendor 
characterizes this fine poetry, but it is not actable drama. 
Moody's fame as dramatist must rest upon his two prose 
plays, The Great Divide (1906) and The Faith Healer (1909). 
The Great Divide has been many times produced with notable 
success and has also proved to be one of the most readable 
of modern plays. The earlier scenes are on a ranch in Arizona 
and the last in New England; the plot revolves about the 
melodramatic marriage of an eastern girl with a western 

*See page 409, 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 419 

mine-owner, sound at heart but crude in culture, the return 
East of the wife under the influence of a brother, and the final 
reconciliation with her husband who had followed her to the 
ancestral roof. The theme of the play is the breaking down of 
sectional antagonism through the transforming power of love 
and duty. The Faith Healer, with a middle-western back- 
ground, develops the problem, whether a man can work 
miracles and love a girl at the same time: how far will the 
joys of human affection interfere with a sort of consecration to 
one's life-task? The conclusion is that the union of the two 
is not only possible but very desirable. In this play, as in the 
other. Moody makes much of the idea of a new birth in men 
and women through devotion to some person or ideal, a finding 
of one's real self in a struggle against excessive individualism 
or provincialism. The Faith Healer is almost a ^'problem" 
play, subtle and suggestive, too lacking in outward action and 
tense situation for the stage and more of a drama of ideas than 
most American plays. 

Percy MacKaye (1875 ), son of Steele MacKaye, 

already mentioned, was born in New York City and lives in 
New Hampshire. While a student at Harvard he took great 
interest in dramatics and began the writing of plays; he has 
published and presented about twenty dramas of one kind and 
another, besides writing several small volumes of poems. Like 
Moody, Mr. MacKaye is both a poet and a playwright, as 
much concerned with the aesthetic qualitj^ of his productions 
as with their purely dramatic effectiveness. The Canterbury 
Pilgrims (1903), Jeanne cC Arc (1906), and Sappho and Phaon 
(1907) deal with literary and historical subjects; Mater, 
Anti-Matrimony, and Tomorrow are political and social 
comedies, the last, more serious than the first two, setting 
forth certain ideas on eugenics. One of the most striking of 
Mr. Mackaye's dramas is The Scarecrow (1908), based on 
Hawthorne's story of 'Teathertop" in his Mosses from an 
Old Manse and belonging to the romance of the fantastic. 



420 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

This play, called by the author "a tragedy of the ludicrous'', 
is a satire on hollow social pretensions and at the same time a 
tribute, in fanciful guise to be sure, to the virtues of human 
sj'^mpathy and truth. 

Mr. MacKaye is a master of Pageantry and Masque, and 
in such spectacular performances he is probably making a 
finer contribution to dramatic art than in his more formal 
plays. The Gloucester Pageant (1903), celebrating the history 
of the old city in Massachusetts; the Saint Gaudens Masque- 
Prologue (1905), in honor of the great American sculptor; 
Sanctuary, a Bird Masque (1913), a gorgeous spectacle of bird 
life; Saint Louis, A Civic Masque (1914), given at the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Missouri 
city; and Caliban, a Community Masque, produced in New York 
City during the celebration of the Shakespeare tercentenary in 
1916, are so far his most notable productions of this kind. 
He has also written romantic folk-operas which have been 
successfully presented, and he is the author of numerous 
essays in dramatic criticism. The community drama, the 
civic and national theater movement, and other efforts to 
elevate the tone of the American drama, are matters of deep 
interest to Mr. MacKaye,, and no one of our contemporary 
playwrights has done more than he to refine it by touching 
vital themes with poetic imagination. 

Along with such literary dramatists as Moody and MacKaye, 
tnention should be made of Richard Hovey (1864-1900), poet 
and playmaker, who projected an ambitious trilogy on the old 
romantic theme of *'Launcelot and Guinevere,'' completed the 
first part and was beginning the second, when death cut him 

off; and Mrs. Josephine Preston Peabody Marks (1874 ), 

of Boston, who has written three plays of great poetic h^OMiy— 
Marlowe (1901), The Piper (which won the Stratford-on-Avon 
prize in 1910 and was produced both in England and America), 
and The Wolf of Gruhhio (1913). These plays, while dramatic 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 421 

enough in movement, are on subjects so remote from modern 
life and in language so essentially poetic as to belong rather to 
closet drama than to the actable kind. 

Charles Rann Kennedy (1871 ), a native of England 

but long a resident of the United States, has written a number 
of short plays of poetic and moral quahty as part of a well- 
defined dramatic program. One of these. The Servant in the 
House (1907), has been given with marked success and has 
been the subject of much comment. The central theme, as 
stated by the author, is 'The Truth and Love in Life which 
preserve." It is the story of how an Enghsh clergyman is 
assisted in repairing his church by two bishops, the one worldly 
and self-seeking, the other democratic and unselfish ; the latter, 
disguised as the butler Manson (the significance of the name 
is apparent), rapidly becomes the dominant character in the 
play, directs the work of cleansing and t-estoration, and illus- 
trates in practice the Christian teaching of the brotherhood 
of man to the confusion of the formal religionists and the 
edification of the church, the family, and the community. The 
play is realistic enough in spite of its manifest symbolism. 
Other plays of Mr. Kennedy, equally didactic in purpose, are 
The Winterfeast, on the destructiveness of lying and hatred; 
The Idol- Breaker, on freedom; The Rib of the Man, on woman's 
rightful position; The Army with Banners, on the coming of a 
new era after the World War. Trained in the best traditions of 
classic drama, a man of poetic imagination and moral idealism, 
Mr. Kennedy has strengthened the fiber of the modern drama; 
his plays will appeal to the thoughtful, but not widely to 
regular patrons of the theater. 

Several other contemporary dramatists deserve mention for 
their artistic and practical contribution: David Belasco (1859- 

), long known as the manager of the New York theater 

by that name, has written a long list of plays, collaborated in 
others, and adapted a number from the French. Among his 



422 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

most popular plays are : The Heart of Maryland, Madame 
Butterfly (dramatization of John Luther Long's story), The 
Return of Peter Grimm, and The Girl of the Golden West. Mr. 
Belasco has been particularly successful in dealing with foreign, 
especially Japanese, romantic material. He has brought 
about more natural methods in the theater, and has trans- 
formed the old-fashioned stage by his artistic lighting effects. 

Edward Sheldon (1886 ), native of Chicago, resident of 

New York City, graduate of Harvard, has written several 
plays combining the realistic and the romantic in pleasing 
harmony. Salvation Nell (1908) depicts the work of the 
Salvation Army in the slums; The Nigger (1909), presents one 
phase of the so-called negro problem, the effect on a young, 
ambitious Southerner of the discovery that he is of mixed 
blood; The Boss (1911) deals with the career of a successful 
^'boss" in a tj^pical American city who has been accepted by a 
girl of high social station in order to save her family from 
financial ruin, the defeat of the ^^boss,'' his redemption, and his 
reunion with his wife under more promising conditions; Romance 
(1915), the love-affair of an American clergyman and an Italian 
opera singer and its salutary effect on her, in some respects 
the author's finest play. Rachel Crothers, born in Illinois and 
now living in New York City, is both actress and playwright. 
She has written The Three of Us (1906), A Man's World 
(1910), He and She (called for a while The Herfords), and 
Ourselves (1913). The first of these shows the saving power 
of a woman's love over a younger brother; the second is con- 
cerned with social and moral laws as applied differently to 
man and woman; the third is on the matter of professional 
rivalry between husband and wife and its effect upon their 
daughter off at a boarding school; the fourth has to do with 
the double standard of sex-morality. The main theme of Miss 
Crothers' plays touches woman's responsibilities and rights. 

Langdon E. Mitchell (1862 ), son of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, 

the Philadelphia poet and novelist, is a writer of remarkably 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 423 

clever social comedy. He has dramatized Thackeray's Vanity 
Fair and Pendennis with great success, but his own best work 
is found in his comedy, The New York Idea (1906), a satire 
on the results of easy divorce — the entanglements in which a 
group of men and women find themselves and the way the}' 
solve the puzzle. The play is noteworthy for its witty dialogue, 
amusing situations, and the keenness of its irony. 

This rapid sketch of the contribution of a number of play- 
wrights to the contemporary drama in America will make 
clear how widespread and promising this form of creative 
activity has come to be. It is a reaction against the exploita- 
tion of an old and beautiful art for commercial ends, a protest 
against the assumption that the theater is an institution for 
private gain at the sacrifice of aesthetic as well as moral stand- 
ards. The founding of ''little theaters" for the acting of 
meritorious plays by well-trained amateurs, the formation 
of drama leagues for the study, writing, and presentation of 
plays, the establishment of dramatic workshops in a number of 
universities on the order of Professor George P. Baker's now 
famous one at Harvard, are some of the manifestations of the 
constructive and enthusiastic interest in the drama as an 
educative force in modern American life. The one-act play is 
becoming a rival of the short story in popular esteerh. The 
one-act play is not, as some suppose, a comparatively new 
form in the drama, but its present vogue is new; it lends itself 
admirably to amateur acting, while its possibilities as a medium 
through which local tradition may be utilized for entertainment 
and instruction are just beginning to be reahzed. One seems 
justified in applying to a kindred art the remark which Matthew 
Arnold once applied to poetry^ — the future of the drama is 
immense. Material is abundant and the playmakers are 
arriving. The actors are also ready; let us ''see them well 
bestowed," "let them be well used"; for as Hamlet declared, 
"they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time." 



424 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE NEW POETRY 

Among the pioneers of what is called **the new poetry" in 
American literature are such writers as Richard Hovey and 
William Vaughan Moody, both of whom have already been 
discussed. Moody died in 1910, and the following decade has 
seen a number of his contemporaries attain prominence in the 
art which he served with distinction during his all too brief 
career. When we try to hit upon some of the noteworthy 
characteristics of the newer American poetry, the following 
suggest themselves: the treatment of familiar subjects in 
simpler language; less emphasis on form than on subject 
matter; the centering of interest in personality; more local 
coloring; more condensation and restraint; more metrical 
freedom. As a rule our verse of the last decade or two is less 
purely narrative and descriptive and more intensively im- 
pressionistic; it seeks to present clear-cut pictures of men and 
women, of nature, and of significant human interests. Per- 
haps the most distinctive trait of modern verse, as of con- 
temporary literature in general, is its probing analytic quality. 
There is comparatively little of the old story-telling, objective 
verse, and much of the intensively interpretative. Among the 
better-known contemporary poets using older verse-forms as 
frame-work for modern ideas are Edwin Arlington Robinson, 
Robert Frost, Edgar Lee Masters, and Vachel Lindsay. 

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869 ), born in Maine 

and educated at Harvard University, has spent most of his 
life in his native state and in New York City. His first volume 
of poems. Children of the Night, appeared in 1897, and has been 
followed by five or six other small volumes: Captain Craig 
(1902), The Town Down the River (1910), The Man Against 
the Sky (1916), Merlin (1917), Lancelot (1919), and The 
Three Taverns (1920). The strength of Edwin Arlington 
Robinson as a poet is to be found in his ability to individualize 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 425 

a few persons and a few places in a few words. He has several 
long poems, such as Captain Craig and Isaac and Archibald, 
but they are simply a series of situations around a central 
individual. As a rule he is at his best in a poem of a page or 
two. Such poems, for instance, as Richard Cory and Flammonde 
and Miniver Cheevy are intensive bits of character-study, 
personal etchings so sharply engraved that they do not fade 
out. Intellectual poetry this, often cold and colorless, but 
stimulating to the thoughtful reader, and sometimes, as in 
these lines from Captain Craig, morally inspiring: 

It is the fiesh 
That ails us, for the spirit knows no qualm, 
No failure, no down-falling: so climb high, 
And having set your steps, regard not much 
The downward laughter clinging at your feet, 
Nor overmuch the warning; only know. 
As well as you know dawn from lantern-light, 
That far above you, for you, and within you. 
There bums and shines and lives, unwavering 
And always yours, the truth. Take on yourself 
But your sincerity, and you take on 
Good promise for all climbing; fly for tmth, 
And hell shall have no storm to crush your flight, 
No laughter to vex down your loyalty. 

Robinson says the task of the poet is 

To get at the eternal truth of things 
And fearlessly to make strong songs of it; 

and he asserts, in the same connection, that the poet may 
sing 

But roughly, and withal ungraciously, 
But if he touch to life the one right chord 
Wherein God's music slumbers, and awake 
To truth one drowsed ambition, he sings well. 



426 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

This American poet does not sing roughly; his artistry is sure 
and his technique is flawless. His own verse proves that the 
old metric forms are not yet outworn. Of all our later poets 
no one has succeeded better in writing verse that is old in 
form and modern in spirit, verse that has ethical fiber and 
mental stimulus, at once graceful and suggestive. 

Robert Frost (1875- ), a native of San Francisco and 

now a resident of New Hampshire, was educated at Dart- 
mouth and Harvard; he has been ^armer, traveler, and teacher. 
He has published three volumes of poems, A Boy's Will (1912), 
North of Boston (1914), and Mountain Interval (1916), and 
continues to write occasionally for the magazines. Repre- 
sentative poems are ''Mending Wall," the burden of which is 
''Good fences make good neighbors"; "Birches," which remind 
him of the boyish joy of swinging on their branches; and "The 
Road Not Taken," which makes him wonder why he took the 
one he did take of the two roads that lay before him "in a 
yellow wood." Frost loves and intimately understands the 
New England character and country. No one, not even 
Whittier, has so truthfully depicted them in simple, restrained, 
and colorful language; every word seems to fit exactly the 
thing he is describing, is as "fully flavored as a nut or an 
apple," to use the phrase of Synge, the Irish writer. Very real 
is Frost's poetry, as if he is recording facts not fancies; but he 
illuminates his facts and also humanizes them. It is thoughtful 
verse, severe in its simplicity and intensity. No other of our 
present-day poets, or indeed of American poets in general, 
has more successfully combined economy of speech with 
naturalness and clearness of expression. He does a great deal 
with a few words; he is a painstaking artist who polishes and 
concentrates. A New England pastoral poet with a keen eye 
for the essentials in life and landscape, somewhat cold, but 
sensitive to the beauty and ultimate significance of ordinary 
things, — such is Robert Frost as revealed in his verse. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 427 

Edgar Lee Masters (1869^ ), was born in Kansas, 

educated at Knox College and privately, and now lives in 
Chicago. By profession he is a lawyer. After writing much 
verse and several plays in more or less conventional forms, 
he published in 1915 a volume of poems called Spoon River 
Anthology. This title suggests an ancient book, the Greek 
Anthology, which Masters had read with delight some years 
before. Taking this name from the Greek book (meaning in 
the original ''a collection of flowers"), he applied it to a col- 
lection of nearly two hundred and fifty little monologues 
which he represents the dead in the cemetery of an Illinois 
village, Spoon River, as uttering. These little poems are con- 
densed autobiographies, confessions by dead men and women 
of virtues and vices in their lives or, in some cases, revelations 
of the causes of their death. They are written in irregular 
verse, — simple, and sometimes brutally frank, language. The 
stark realism of Spoon River Anthology is startling; as a whole 
it is also depressing, for this village graveyard is peopled with 
rather sordid characters. The baser elements in human 
nature obscure the good. The monologue of Anne Rutledge, 
romantically connected with Lincoln, is the most genuinely 
poetic and one of the few pleasant epitaphs. Masters has un- 
doubtedly done something original in Spoon River Anthology, 
but it may be seriously questioned whether such cynical bits of 
dissection, trenchant though this be, will make a lasting appeal 
to readers. In the volume. Songs and Satires (1916), there is 
one poem which goes deep and rises high, true to the great 
spiritual realities of life. It is the poem called ''Silence." A 
few lines will give an idea cf the quahty, but it should be 
read entire: 

There is the silence of a great hatred, 
And the silence of a great love, 
And the silence of a deep peace of mind, 
And the silence of an embittered friendship; 
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, 
Through which your soul, exquisitely toi'tured, 



428 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Comes with visions not to be uttered 

Into a realm of high life .... 

And there is the silence of age, 

Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it 

In words intelligible to those who have not lived 

The great range of life. 

Vachel Lindsay (1879 ), is a native of Springfield, 

Illinois, his present home, and was educated at Hiram College, 
Ohio, and at art schools in Chicago and New York. He has 
been a lecturer on art and social reform, a pedestrian on long 
journeys through many states preaching the Gospel of Beauty 
and reciting, or rather, chanting his verses, and relating his 
adventures in A Handy Guide for Beggars. His important 
volumes of verse are : General William Booth Enters into Heaven 
(1913), The Congo (1914), The Chinese Nightingale (1917), 
The Golden Book of Springfield (1919), and The Golden Whales 
of California (1920). Vachel Lindsay is a modern minstrel, 
full of song and a zest for wandering, like the gleeman of old. 
The chant and the ode are his favorite forms. They are not to 
be silently read; marginal directions make it clear that these 
poems should be rhythmically recited. Such poems as ^'General 
Booth Enters Heaven," 'The Congo," and 'The Sante F^ 
Trail" struck a new note in American poetry, though the chant 
and the ode are not new forms. The first is revivalistic in tone, 
the second is an interpretation of basal race-traits, and the 
third is a noisy humoresque. Sound with Vachel Lindsay is 
an essential part of the poetic game: the clashing of cymbals, 
the beating of the big bass drum, the blowing of trumpets, the 
orchestral accompaniment, all are echoed in his verse, which 
is strong in primitive human qualities. More restrained are 
such poems as ''Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," in- 
spired by the World War, and 'The Eagle that is Forgotten," 
an elegy on Governor Altgeld of Illinois. There is a weird 
impressiveness about the first and a haunting dirgelike tone 
in the second, with its final rememberable lines:. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 429 

To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name, 
To live in mankind, far, far more than to live in a name. 

"The Chinese Nightingale" is Lindsay's finest fantasy. The 
color, the melody, the oriental paraphernaha in western setting, 
make it a bit of enchanting romance. Indeed, this western 
poet is among the most romantic of our singers, a genial trouba- 
dour who revels in novelties of sound and color. 

The poets just considered are more or less conservative; they 
make use of established forms of verse, though their spirit is 
quite modern. There is, however, a considerable group of 
poets who may be called radicals; they use, in most of their 
poems, a meter that is irregular, resembling prose in its lack 
of rhyme and definite rhythm. The lines are of unequal 
length and suggest prose arbitrarily chopped up and arranged 
metrically. This sort of verse is called ''free verse." Free 
verse is not new; it is found, indeed, in certain standard poets 
like Milton {Samson Agonistes), Matthew Arnold, and Henley, 
but with more regularity of movement, such as one meets in 
odes and chants. It was Walt Whitman, the American poet, 
who first made extensive use of free verse and gave it popularity. 
Sometimes the term ''imagists" is applied to these more radical 
successors of Whitman, because many of them use certain 
images and symbols in their poetry for pictorial effect. The 
so-called ''imagists" assert that they use more exact words than 
the older poets and that they produce poetry ''that is hard and 
clear, never blurred nor indefinite." 

Amy Lowell (1874 ). Among the free-verse poets and 

the imagists is Amy Lowell of Massachusetts, who has writ- 
ten much excellent verse and many critical essays. Several of 
her best volumes are: A Dome of Many-Colored Glass (1912), 
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), Men, Women and Ghosts 
(1916), Can Grandees Castle (1918), and Pictures of the Floating 
World (1919) . Not all of this, by any means, is free verse ; Miss 
Lowell has written all sorts of forms, but she is a militant 



430 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

defender of the less conservative and is classed among the 
radicals. She also writes a kind of rhythmical, rhapsodic prose, 
adopted from the French and called "polyphonic prose" 
(hterally, "many-sounding"' or "many-voiced"), a good 
example of which is the prose-poem, "Bombardment," in which 
the destruction of Rheims Cathedral is vividly depicted. Miss 
Lowell's best-known poem is perhaps "Patterns" which repre- 
sents an eighteenth-century lady, in a "stiff, brocaded gown," 
walking up and down in a formal garden after receiving news 
of the death of her lover in battle; the prevailing image is a 
pattern — the lady, the dress, the garden paths, wars. Other 
tjTjical poems are "Free Fantasia on Japanese Themes," 
"Madonna of the Evening Flowers," "The Lamp of Life." 
In much of the free-verse output the titles turn out to be 
more poetic than the body of the poem, and one is often dis- 
appointed in the details. There are not many rememberable 
lines, and the general effect is that of a picture icily etched. 
The intellect has chilled the emotions and cramped the imagi- 
nation; the singer is too much of a scientist. 

Carl Sandburg (1878- ), of Chicago, has published two 

volumes of irregular verse, Chicago Poems and Cornhuskers. 
Uneven as much of this is, it has great virility and a mystic 
touch here and there. Sandburg sings of out-of-door people 
and things, of the toiler in cities and on farms, of fogs on the 
lake, of the prairie, of ugliness and beauty; and one feels that he 
has felt the emotions he puts in his songs. He can be slangy 
and rough, and he can also be tender and dreamy. His verse 
is not unhke Whitman's, but he is not an imitator. The new 
American spirit is strong in his poems, which are fresh and 
vigorous if not always artistic. One of his best is headed 
"Sketch": 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 431 

The shadows of the ships 

Rock on the crest 

In the low blue lustre 

Of the tardy and the soft inroUing tide. 

A long brown bar at the dip of the sky 
Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. 

The lucid and endless wrinkles 
Draw in, lapse and withdraw. 
Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles 
Wash on the floor of the beach. 

Rocking on the crest 

In the low blue lustre 

Are the shadows of the ships. 

Other prominent writers of free verse, sometimes classified 
as imagists, are John Gould Fletcher, Alfred Kreymborg, 
Adelaide Crapsey. "H. D." (Hilda Doolittle, now Mrs. 
Aldington), and James Oppenheim. It is yet too early to say 
with assurance that these have made a notable contribution 
to American verse, or, indeed, that the productions of the 
free-verse singers will last. They have done some clever 
things, undoubtedly, but they have not written with sustained 
power: formlessness in art should at least be redeemed by a 
weightier substance than belongs to most verse of this sort. 

To another group of contemporary American poets the 
name ''lyricists" has been applied, because their verse has a 
haunting musical quality that is very pleasing. These are 
true lyric poets. Chief among them is Sara Teasdale (1884- 

), a native of St. Louis, now living in New York City. 

She has several volumes — Helen of Troy and Other Poems, 
Rivers to the Sea, Love Songs, and Flame and Shadow,— in each 
of which there are lyric poems of rare sweetness and delicacy 
of form. Love is the burden of her song. But whether she 
sings of love or nature or death, she is the poet of exquisite 
artistry; as, for instance, in these Hnes: 



432 AMERICAN LITERATURE ^ 

The stately tragedy of dusk 

Drew to its perfect close, 
The virginal white evening star 

Sank, and the red moon rose. 

Anna Hempstead Branch, of Connecticut, author of The Shoes 
That Danced and Rose of the Wind, is a singer whose lyrics are 
touched with philosophy. One of her finest short poems is the 
sonnet ''While Loveliness Goes By": 

Sometimes when all the world seems grey and dun 

And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry, 

"Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!" 

Then my slow burdens leave me one by one. 

And swiftly does my heart arise and run 

Even like a child while loveliness goes by— 

And common folk seem children of the sky. 

And common things seem shaped of the sun. 

Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must 

So soon perceive their shining garments fade ! 

And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust 

Their flaming banners sink into a shade ! 

While this earth's sunshine seems the golden dust 

Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade. 

Other lyricists are Margaret Widdemer, of Pennsylvania, 
whos^ best-known poem is "Factories," which gives the name 
to a volume of poems on social injustice to women and themes 
more sentimental; Harriet Monroe, of Chicago, editor of 
Poetry Siiid writer of many delicate lyrics in the volume called 
Ydu and I; Olive Tilford Dargan, of Kentucky, and 
Henry Aylett Sampson, of Virginia, both gifted singers, the 
one in lyrical dramas, the other in sonnets; and Conrad Aiken, 
a native of Georgia and now living in Massachusetts, who in 
Earth Triumphant and Turns and Movies has published several 
meriiorable poems such as ''Discordants," one stanza of which 
runs thus: 

Music I heard with you was more than music, 

And bread I broke with you was more than bread; 

Now that I am without you, all is desolate; 

All that was once so beautiful is dead. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 433 

To continue this list would be but to make a catalogue of 
names; those mentioned are representative of a large number of 
living poets, selections from whose works may be found in 
several volumes arranged by their fellow poets. Three of 
these, Louis Untermeyer, Marguerite Wilkinson, and Jessie 
RiTTENHOUSE, deserve special mention for their excellent collec- 
tions of contemporary verse, which will be found listed at the 
end of this chapter. 

The World W^ar was the occasion of a vast amount of verse 
in this and other countries. Much of it was more or less 
ephemeral, inspired by the stress and strain of the mighty 
conflict. Two Canadian poets, Robert W. Service and John 
McCrae, became widely popular, the first for his vivid pictures 
of soldier life in camp and hospital, and the second for his 
stirring lyric, *Tn Flanders Fields, '* the most quoted war poem 
in America. Two other Americans, Alan Seegar and Joyce 
Kilmer, of New York, both killed in battle, had the true poetic 
gift. Alan Seegar (1888-1916), wrote some fine sonnets and 
other lyrics which show him to have been a loving student of 
older English verse, the Elizabethan in particular, but pos- 
terity will likely remember him as the author of an inspiring 
lyric, *T Have a Rendezvous with Death," rendered all the 
more appealing because of the heroic death of the poet himself. 
Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918), intensely human and deeply 
religious, was less of an artist than Seegar but a truer 
interpreter of the democratic spirit in life. One poem of 
Kilmer, * Trees," has already become classic and deserves to 
live because of the simplicity and charm with which it re- 
flects, in freshness of imagery, a sentiment common among 
nature-lovers : 

I think that I shall never see 
A poem lovely as a tree. 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; 



434 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

A tree that looks at God all day, 
And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in summer wear 
A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 
Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me, 
But only God can make a tree. 



I 



CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 435 

SOME USEFUL BOOKS 
The Drama 

Collections of Plays: A. H. Quinn's Representative American 
Plays; T. H. Dickinson's Chief Contemporary Dramatists (con- 
tains four American plays); M. J. Moses' Representative Plays 
by American Dramatists, 3 vols.; J. A. Pierce's Masterpieces of 
Modem Drama, Vol. 2 (selections from twelve American plays); 
G. P. Baker's Modem American Plays (five plays) ; Mayorga's One- 
act American Plays. 

History and Criticism: A. Homblow's History of the Theatre in 
America, 2 vols.; R. Burton's The New American Drama; C. 
Andrews' The Drama Today; S. Cheney's The New Movement in the 
Theatre; B. H. Clarke's British and American Drama of Today; "W. 
P. Eaton's The American Stage of Today; A. Henderson's The 
Changing Drama; P. MacKaye's The Playhouse and the Play; P. 
MacKaye's The Civic Theatre; S. Cheney's The Community Play; 
M. J. Moses' The American Dramatist. 

The New Poetry 

Collections of Poems: L. Untermeyer's Modem American Poetry; 
J. Rittenhouse's A Little Book of Modem Verse and Second Book 
of Modem Verse; Monroe & Henderson's The New Poetry; M. 
Wilkinson's New Voices; Braithwaite's Anthology of Magazine 
Verse (annually since 1915). 

History and Criticism: L. Untermeyer's New Era in American 
Poetry; W. L. Phelps's Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth 
Century; A. Lowell's Tendencies in Modem American Poetry; G. L. 
Lowes' Convention and ReTolt in Poetry; B. Perry's The Study of 
Poetry. 

In addition to numerous articles in periodicals such as The Atlan- 
tic Monthly, The Bookman, The Nation, The New Republic, and The 
Tale Review, valuable discussions and some excellent verse may be 
found in magazines exclusively devoted to the poetic art, such as 
Poetry, The Poetry Journal, The Poetry Review of America, and Poet- 
Lore. 



INDEX 



(Titles of books, poems, essays, stories, etc., are in italics. ) 



Abolitionism : 154. 
Adams, John : 72, 
Adams, Samuel: 68. 
Ade, George : 399, 
Aiken, Conrad : 432. 
Alcott, a. Bronson: 152, 250, 
Alcott, Louisa M. : 250. 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey: 248. 
Alhambra, The (Irving): 114. 
Alice of Old Vincennes (Thompson) : 396. 
Allen, James Lane : life, 328: works, 329. 
Allston, Washington: 143. 
American Anthology: 363. 
American Flag, The (Drake): 139. 
American Humor: 384. 
American Scholar, The (Emerson): 163. 
Among My Books (Lowell) : 214. 
Annabel Lee (Poe): 266, 268. 
Arizona (Thomas): 417. 
Arizona Nights (White) : 401. 
Aspects of the Pines (Hayne) : 291. 
Atalantis (Simms):311. 
Atherton, Gertrude : 402. 
Atlantic Monthly, The: 194, 218, 343. 
Autobiography (Franklin) : 85. 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (Holmes): 
224. 

Backlog Studies (Warner): 348. 
Bacon's Epitaph : 25, 
Bagby, George W. : 318. 
Ballads of the Revolution : 96. 
Bancroft, George: 227. 
Bangs, John Kendrick : 375, 
Barbara Frietchie (Whittier) : 244. 
Barlow, Joel: 95. 
Battle of the Kegs (Hopkinson) : 80. 
Bay Psalm Book: Z9. 
Bedouin Song (Taylor): 351. 
Being a Buy (Warner ) : 348. 
Belasco, David : 421. 
Bells, The (Poe): 267. 
Ben Hur (Wallace): 3%. 
Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah, 399. 



Beverley, Robert : 25, 

BiERCE, Ambrose : 402, 

Bighw Papers, The (Lowell) : 211. 

Billings, Josh: 385. 

Bird and Bough (Burroughs) : 349. 

Birthmark, The (Hawthorne): 186. 

Bivouac of the Dead (O'Hara) : 299. 

Blair, James : 30. 

Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne): 189. 

BOKER, George H ; 364. 

Boner, John Henry: 340. 

Bonner, Katherine Sherwood, 339. 

BosHER, Mrs. Kate Langley: 339. 

Bracebridge Hall (Irving): 114. 

Brackenridge, Hugh H.: 102. 

Bradford, William: life, 31 ; writings, 31. 

Bradstreet, Anne: life and poetry, 42. 

Branch, Anna Hempstead : 432. 

Brook Farm: 153. 

Brown, Alice : 252. 

Brown, Charles Brockden: life, 98; 
novels, 99; literary characteristics, 101. 

Brownell, William Crary: 375. 

Bryant, William Cullen: life, 130; person- 
ality, 132; poetry, 132; translation of 
Homer, 136; literary characteristics, 136. 

Bunker Hill Oration (Webster) : 237, 

Bunner, Henry C. : 374. 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson : 339. 

Burroughs, John: 349. 

Byrd, William: varied activities, 26; writ- 
ings, 27. 

Cabell, James Branch : 338, 

Cable George W.: life, 318; works, 319. 

Calhoun, John C. : 306. 

Call of the Wild (London) : 401. 

Cambridge Group: 193. 

Canterbury Pilgrims, The (MacKaye): 365, 

419. 
Carleton, Will: 410, 
Carolina (Timrod ) : 287, 
Cary, Alice and Phoebe: 364, 
Cask of Am,ontillado (Poe) : 268. 



[4371 



438 



INDEX 



Cathbrwood, Mary Hart well: 402. 

Cavaliers is VraGiNiA: 15. 

Cawein, Madison J. : 301. 

Century Magazine: 343. 

Chambered Nautilus, The (Holmes): 221. 

Channing, William E. : 148. 

Cheney, John Vance : 410. 

Choir Invisible, The (Allen): 329, 331. 

Christmas Night in the Quarters (RusseU): 
325. 

Churchill, Winston: 251. 

Clay, Henry: 306. 

Clemens, Samuel L. : life, 386; personality, 
387; works, 388; humor and charac- 
teristics, 391. 

Clergy, Early New England : 47. 

Climbers, The (Fitch): 417. 

Colonel Carter of Cartersville (F. H. Smith): 
338. 

Colonial Period: colonial Virginia, 13; 
colonial Massachusetts, 16; colonial 
literature, 18; outline of, 60; books on, 
61. 

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise (Dwight) : 
95. 

Commemoration Ode (Lowell) : 213. 

Concord Group, The: 157. 

Concord School: 151. 

Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court 
(Clemens): 388, 391. 

Conquered Banner, The (Ryan): 295. 

Conquest of Granada (Irving): 116. 

Conspiracy of Pontiac, The (Parkman): 233. 

Cook, Ebenezer: 30. 

Cooke, J. Esten: 316. 

Cooke, Philip Pendleton: 298. 

Cooper, James Fenimore: life, 119; person- 
ality, 122; romances, 123; literary charac- 
teristics, 127; contribution, 129. 

Corn (Lanier): 279. 

Cotton Boll, The (Timrod): 285. 

Courtship of Miles Standish (Longfellow): 
203. 

Craddock, Charles Egbert: 326. 

Crapsey, Adelaide: 431. 

Crawford, Frances Marion: 370. 



Crisis, The (Lowell): 251. 
Criticism and Fiction (Howells): 367. 
Crothers, Rachel : 422. 
Culprit Fay, The (Drake): 139. 
Curtis, George William: 346. 

Daisy Miller (James) : 369. 

Dana, Richard Henry: 143, 249. 

Dante, Longfellow's Translation of: 199. 

Dargan, Olive Tilford : 304, 432. 

Davis, Richard Harding: 374. 

Day of Doom, The (Wigglesworth ) : 44. 

Days (Emerson): 167. 

Deerslayer, The (Cooper) : 126. 

Deliverance, The (Glasgow): 337. 

Democracy and other Addresses (Lowell): 

214. 
Dial, The: 152. 
Dickinson, Emily, 250. 
Divinity School Address (Emerson): 163. 
Doolittle, Hilda: 431. 
Drake, Joseph Rodman : 139. 
Drama, The: 414. 
Dream Life (D. G. Mitchell) : 349. 
Dreiser, Theodore: 399. 
Dukesborough Tales (Johnston): 338. 
DuNLAP, William: 102. 
Dunne, Finley Peter: 402. 
DwiGHTr Timothy : 94. 

Eastern Writers (later) : 343. 

Easy Chair Essays (Curtis) : 347. 

Edgar Huntly (Brown) : 100. 

Edwards, Harry Still well : 339. 

Edwards, Jonathan: life, 55; works, 56. 

Eggleston, Edward : 395. 

Eggleston, George Cary: 339. 

Eliot, John ("Apostle to the Indians"): 59. 

Elsie Venner (Holmes): 225. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: life, 157; person- 
ality, 161 ; essays, 162 ; poetry, 166; literary 
characteristics, 170; message, 171. 

English Traits (Emerson) : 162. 

Essays (Emerson): 164. 

Essays (Lowell): 214. 

Essays to Do Good (Mather) : 54. 

Ethm Brand (Hawthorne): 187, 192, 



INDEX 



439 



Evangeline (Longfellow ): 200. 
Evening Song (Lanier ): 278. 

Fable far Critics (Lowell) : 210. 

Fables in Slang (Ade) : 399. 

Fair God, The (Wallace) : 396. 

Fall of the House of Usher (Poe): 268, 269. 

Federalist, The (Hamilton, Madison, Jay) 
74. 

Field, Eugene : 405. 

Fields, James T. : 250. 

FisKE, John: 233. 

Fitch, Clyde: 417. 

Fletcher, John Gould: 431. 

Florence Vane (Cooke) : 298. 

Flute and Violin (Allen) : 329, 330. 

FooTE, Mart Halloce : 402. 

Ford, Paul Leicester: 373. 

Forest Hymn, A (Bryant): 134. 

Foster, Stephen C. : 410. 

Fox, John: 336. 

Four Million, The (Porter) : 336. 

Franklin, Benjamin: life, 81; characteris- 
tics, 83; public spirit, 84; writings, 85; 
literary contribution, 88. 

Freedom of the Will, Treatise on (Edwards): 
58. 

Freeman, Mary Wilkins: 251. 

French, Alice (Octave Thanet) : 402. 

Freneau, Philip: life, 90; poetry, 91. 

Frost, Robert : 426. 

Fuller, Henry Blake, 402. 

Fuller, Marg.\ret : 153. 

Garland, Hamlin : 400. 

Gates Ajar (Ward): 250. 

Gettysburg Address (Lincoln): 378. 

Gilder, Rich.\rd Watson: 363. 

Girl of the Golden West, The (Belasco): 422. 

Gillette, William: 416. 

Gl-vsgow, Ellen : 337. 

Godfrey, Thomas : 79. 

Gold Bug, The (Poe) : 268, 269. 

Golden Bowl, The (James ): 369. 

Grady, Henry Woodfin : 307. 

Grandissimes, The (Cable): 319, 321. 

Grapevine Swing (Peck) : 304. 



Great Divide, The (Moody): 418. 

Great Stone Face (Hawthorne): 186. 

Green Be the Turf Above Thee (Halleck) : 141, 

Hail Columbia! Happy Land! (Hopkinson) : 
81. 

Hale, Edward E\'erett: 250. 

Hale in the Bush: 96. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene: 140. 

Hamilton, Alexander: 74. 

Hammond, John: 30. 

Harben, Will: 339. 

Hardy, Arthur S. : 251. 

Harl.\nd, Marion (Mrs. Terhune): 339. 

Harper's Magazine: 343. 

Harris, Joel Chandler : life, 322 ; stories, 
323. 

Harrison, Henry Sydnor: 338. 

Harte, Bret: life, 378; short stories and 
poems, 380; characteristics, 382. 

"Hartford Wits:" 93. 

Harvard University: founded, 17; intel- 
lectual center, 194. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel: life, 178; person- 
ality, 182 ; works, 183 ; tales, 184 ; romances, 
188; characteristics and contribution, 191. 

Hay, John: 397. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton: life, 289; person- 
ality, 290; poetry, 291; poetic qualities, 
293. 

Hayne, Wh^lum H. : 304. 

Hazard of New Fortunes, A (Howells): 367. 

Hazel Kirke (MacKaye): 416. 

Health, A (Pinkney) : 298. 

Held by the Enemy (Gillette) : 416. 

Henderson, Archibald: 340. 

Henry, O. (Sidney Porter): 335. 

Henry, Patrick : 70. 

HER>rE, James A. : 416. 

Herrick, Robert: 402. 

Hiawatha (Longfellow): 201. 

Hilt to Hilt (Cooke): 317. 

Historians : 228. 

Holland, Josiah Gilbert: 364. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell: life, 217; person- 
ality, 219; poetry, 219; poetic qualities, 
223 ; prose, 224. 



440 



INDEX 



Home, Sweet Home (Payne) : 143. 

Hoosier Schoolmaster (Eggleston): 395. 

Hope, James B.\rron : 296. 

HopKiNSON, Francis: 79. 

HoPKiNSON, Joseph : 81 . 

Horse- Shoe Robinson (Kennedy): 315. 

House of Mirth, The (Wharton) : 374. 

House of the Seven Gables (Hawthorne): 189. 

HovEY, Richard : 410, 420. 

Howard, Bronson: 415. 

HowELLS, William Dean: life, 365; works, 

366; realism of, 368. 
Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of (Clemens): 

388, 390. 
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker (Mitchell): 374. 
Humble Romance, A (Fraeman) : 251. 
Hyperion (Longfellow): 198. 

Indian Burying Ground, The (Freneau) : 92. 

Indian Summer (Howells): 367. 

Indian.'^^ Writers : 393. 

In Harbor (Hayne) : 293. 

Innocents Abroad (Clemens): 386, 388. 

In Ole Virginia (Page) : 332. 

In the Tennessee Mountains (Murfree): 326. 

Irving, Washington: life, 107; personality, 

108; works. 111; literary characteristics, 

117; contribution, 118. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt : 399. 
James, Henry: 369. 
Jamestown, settlement of: 13-14. 
Jefferson, Thomas: 75. 
Jewett, Sarah Orne : 251. 
Joan of Arc (Clemens) : 388, 391. 
Johnson, Edward : 59. 
Johnston, Mary : 337. 
Johnston, Richard Malcolm: 338. 
Jones, Hugh: 30. 
Journal (Woolman): 89. 

Kennedy, Charles Rann: 421. 

Kennedy, John P.: 314. 

Kentucky Cardinal, A (Allen): 329, 330. 

Kentucky Poems (Cawein) : 302. 

Key, Francis Scott: 97, 298. 

Kilmer, Joyce: 433. 

King, Grace Elizabeth: 339. 



King Solomon of Kentucky (Allen) : 330. 
Knickerbocker Group: writers of, 106; 

outline, 144 ; books on, 144. 
Knickerbocker Legend: 119. 
Knickerbocker's History of New York 

(Irving): 111. 
Kreymborg, Alfred: 431. 

Lady Baltimore (Wister) : 374. 

Lady or the Tiger, The (Stockton): 373. 

Lanier, Sidney: life, 273; personality, 276; 
poetry, 278 ; prose, 281 ; characteristics and 
contribution, 282. 

Last Leaf, The (Holmes) : 220. 

Last of the Mohicans, The (Cooper): 126. 

Laurens, Henry: 102. 

Lawson, John: 30. 

Lazarus, Emma: 364. 

Leather stocking Tales (Cooper): 126. 

Leaves of Grass (Whitman) : 354, 355, 356, 359, 
361. 

Lee, Richard Henry: 69. 

Legends and Lyrics (Hayne) : 291. 

Lewis Rand (Johnston) : 337. 

Libraries, Growth of: 344. 

Life and Song (Lanier) : 278, 279. 

Life Lesson, A (Riley) : 394. 

Life of Columbus (Irving) : 115. 

Life of Goldsmith (Irving): 116. 

Life of Washington (Irving) : 117. 

Life on the Mississippi (Clemens): 388, 390, 
391. 

Lincoln, Abraham: 378. 

Lindsay, Vachel : 428. 

Literary Messenger, The: 263, 268. 

Literary Values (Burroughs) : 350. 

Little Giffin of Tennessee (Ticknor) : 299. 

Little Lord Fauntleroy (Burnett) : 339. 

Little Women (L. Alcott) : 250. 

Long Roll, The (Johnston) : 337. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: life, 195; 
personality, 197; works, 198; classification 
of poems, 199; characteristics and contri- 
bution, 204. 

London, Jack: 401. 

LovEMAN, Robert: 304. 

Lowell, Amy: 429. 



INDEX 



441 



Lowell, James Russell: life, 205; person- 
ality, 208; poetry, 209; poetic qualities, 
214; prose, 214; general estimate, 216. 

Luck of Roaring Camp, The (Harte): 381. 

Mackaye, Percy: 365, 419. 

Mack AYE, Steele, 416. 

Madison, James: 75. 

Magazines: 343. 

Magnalia, The (Mather): 53. 

Mahomet and His Successors (Irving): 117^ 

Main-Travelled Roads (Garland): 400. 

Malone, Walter: 304. 

Man with the Hoe, The (Markham) : 410. 

Man without a Country, The (Hale) : 250. 

Marble Faun, The (Hawthorne): 190. 

Marco Bozzaris (Halleck): 140. 

Marjorie Daw (Aldrich): 249. 

Markham, Edwin: 410. 

Marks, Josephine Pe.\body: 252, 420. 

Marse Chan (Page): 332, 333. 

Marshall, John: 102. 

Marshes of Glynn, The (Lanier): 270-280. 

Marvel, Ik (Mitchell): 348. 

Maryland, My Maryland (Randall): 299. 

Masque of the Red Death (Poe) : 268. 

M.\STERS, Edgar Lee: 427. 

Mather, Cotton: famous family, 51 ; Mag- 

n lia, 53 ; Essays to Do Good, 54. 
Matthews, Brander: 364, 375. 
Maud Muller : 24=i. 
May-Poleof Merry Mount, The (Hawthorne): 

35, 185. 
McCabe, W. Gordon: 339. 
McCrae, John: 433. 
McFingal (Trumbull) : 94. 
McNeill, John Charles : 340. 
M eh Lady (Page): 333. 
Middle Colonies: 78. 
Miller, CiNaNNATXJS Heine : 407. 
Miller of Old Church, The (Glasgow): 337. 
Mitchell, Donald G. : 348. 
Mitchell, Silas Weir: 374. 
Mocking-Birds, The (Hayne):292. 
Modern Instance, A (Howells) : 366. 
Monroe, Harriet: 432. 
Monsieur Beaucaire (Tarkington ) : 398. 



Montague, Margaret P. : 340. 

Moody, William Vaughn: 409, 418. 

More, Paul Elmer : 375. 

Mobton, Thomas: 35. 

Mosses from an Old Manse (Hawthorne): 

184. 
Motley, John Lothrop: 229. 
Moulton, Louise Chandler: 250. 
Mr. Dooley's Philosophy (Dunne): 402. 
Mr. Isaacs (Crawford): 371. 
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (Rice): 338. 
MS. Found in a Bottle (Poe) : 263, 268. 
Murfree, Mary N.: life, 326; works, 326. 
My Country, 'tis of thee (S. F. Smith); 250. 
My Generous Heart Disdains (Hopkinson): 

80. 
My Life is Like the Summer Rose (Wilde): 

298. 
My Old Kentucky Home (Foster) : 410. 
My Springs (Lanier): 278, 279. 
My Study (Hayne):292. 
My Study Windows (Lowell) : 214. 
Mystery of Marie Roget (Poe) : 268. 

Narrative of A. Gordon Pym (Poe) ; 268. 
Nasby, Petroleum V. : 385. 
New England Awakening, The : 146. 
New England Primer: 59. 
Nicholson, Meredith: 399. 
NoRRis, Frank: 402. 
N orth American Review : aZ . 
North of Boston (Frost): 426. 
Norwood, Henry: 30. 

Novels: influence of early English, 97; 
early American, 98; later, 413. 

Octopus, The (Norris) : 402. 

O'Hara, Theodore: 299. 

OU Creole Days (Cable) : 319, 320, 321. 

Old Oaken Bucket (Woodworth) : 143. 

Old Town Folks (Stowe): 157. 

Oppenheim, James: 431. 

Or.\tors: Revolutionary, 66; New England, 

234; Southern, 304. 
Oregqn Trail, The (Parkman) : 233. 
Otis, J.\mes: 67. 
Outcasts of Poker Flat. The (Harte): 382, 



442 



INDEX 



Outre-Mer (Longfellow): 198. 

Page, Thomas Nelson: life, 331; works, 
332; contribution, 334. 

Paine, Thomas: 73. 

P.A.RKMAN, Fr.\ncis: life, 230; works, 232; 
style, 233. 

Partisan, The (Simms): 312, 314. 

Pathfinder, The (Cooper): 126. 

Paulding, James Kirke: 143. 

Payne, John Howard : 143. 

Peabody, Josephine Preston (Mrs. Marks): 
252, 420. 

Peck, Samuel M. : 304. 

Penrod (Tarkington): 398, 

Perctval, James Gates: 143. 

Perry, Bliss: 252. 

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart (Mrs. Ward): 
250. 

Phillips, David Graham : 399. 

Phillips, Wendell: 234. 

Philosophy of Composition (Poe): 271. 

Putt, John James : 410. 

Pierpont, John: 143. 

Pilgrims, Landing of: 16. 

Pilot, The (Cooper): 125. 

PiNKNEY, Edward Coate : 298. 

Pioneers, The (Cooper): 126. 

Pit, The (Norris):402. 

Pit and the Pendulum (Poe) : 268, 269. 

Plymouth, Settlement of: 16. 

Pocahontas: 22. 

Poe, Edgar Allen: life, 260; personality 
264 ; poetry, 265 ; short stories, 268 ; critical 
essays, 270; characteristics and contribu- 
tion, 271. 

Poetic Principle (Poe) : 271. 

Poets of America (Stedman) : 363. 

Poole, Ernest: 403. 

Poor Richard's Almanac (Franklin): 86. 

Porter, Gene Stratton : 399. 

Porter, William Sidney: 335. 

Portrait of a Lady, The (James) : 369. 

Prairie, The (Cooper): 126. 

Prentice, George D. : 339. 

Prescott, William H. : 228. 

Present Crisis, The (Lowell): 210, 



Preston, Margaret J. : 297. 

Prince of Parthia (Godfrey): 79. 

Printing Press, first in Massachusetts, 17 ; 

in Virginia, 15. 
Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, The 

(Murfree):328. 
Prue and I (Curtis) : 347. 
Psalm of the West (Lanier) : 281. 
Pudd'nhead Wilson (Clemens): 388, 391. 
Purloined Letter (Poe ) : 268, 269. 
Puritans in Massachusetts: 16. 

Queed (Harrison) : 338. 

jRamona (Jackson) : 400. 
Ramsay, David: 102. 
Randall, James Ryder : 299. 
Raven, The (Poe): 263, 266, 267. 
Read, Thomas Buchanan: 364. 
Realism, Growth of: 344. 
Red Rock (Page) : 333, 334. 
Red Rover, The (Cooper): 125. 
.Reign of Law, The (Allen): 329, 330. 
Repplier, Agnes : 375. 
Representative Men (Emerson): 162. 
Reveries of a Bachelor (D. G. Mitchell): 349. 
Revolutionary Period: characteristics, 62- 

65; oratory, 66; political essayists, 72; 

poetry, 89; outline of, 103; books on, 103. 
Rice, Alice Hegan : 338. 
Rice, Cale Young: 340. 
Richard Carvel (Chiirchill) : 251. 
Riley, James Whitcomb : 393. 
RiTTENHOusE, Jessie : 433. 
RrvEs, Ameoe : 339. 

Robert of Lincoln (Bob-o'-link) (Bryant) : 135. 
Rob of the Bowl (Kennedy ) : 315. 
Robinson, Edwin Arlington: 424. 
Roe, Edward Payson : 373. 
Roosevelt, Theodore : 375. 
Roughing It (Clemens) : 386, 389. 
Rudder Grange (Stockton): 373. 
Russell, Irwin: 325. 
Ryan, Abram Joseph : life, 294 ; poems, 295. 

Sampson, Henry Aylett: 432. 
Sandburg, Carl: 430. 
Sandys, George ; 24, 



INDEX 



443 



Saracinesca (Crawford): 371. 

Saratoga (Howard) : 415. 

Scarlet Letter, The (Hawthorne) : 188. 

Science of English Verse (Lanier): 281-282. 

ScoLLARD, Clinton: 365. 

Scout, The (Simms): 312. 

Scribner's Magazine: 343. 

Sea WELL, MoLLiE Elliott: 339. 

Seeqar, Alan: 433. 

Servant in the House, The (Kennedy): 421. 

Service, Robert W. : 433. 

Sewall, Samuel: judge, 36; diary, 37. 

Sheldon, Edward : 422. 

Sherman, Frank Dempster: 364. 

Short Stories: Hawthorne's, 184; Poe's, 
268; Poe's theory, 269; Bret Harte's, 380; 
O. Henry's, 335; later, 414. 

Sigourney, Lydia H. : 143. 

Silas Lapham, Rise of (Howells): 366. 

Sill, Edward Rowland : 403. 

Simms, William Gilmore: life, 309; person- 
ality, 311; works, 311; contribution, 314. 

Simple Cobbler of Aggawamm, The (N. 
Ward): 50. 

Sinclair, Upton: 403. 

Sketch Book, The (Irving): 113. 

Skipper Ireson's Ride (Whittier) : 244. 

Slavery: 154-156. 

Sledd, Benjamin: 304. 

Smith, Francis Hopkinson: 338. 

Smith, Captain John: life, 19; writings, 20; 
Pocahontas incident, 22. 

Smith, Samuel F. : 250. 

Snow-Bound (Whittier): 243. 

Snow Image and other Tales (Hawthorne ) : 
184. 

Society upon the Stanislaus (Harte): 383. 

Song of the Chattahoochee (Lanier) ; 278. 

Songs of Childhood (Field) : 405. 

Songs of the Sierras (Miller) : 408. 

Sonnets: Longfellow's 204; Timrod's, 288; 
Hayne's, 292. 

Southern Literature, Divisions of: 259. 

Southern Writers: old Southern life, 255; 
attitude toward literature, 256; newer 
South, 258; divisions of Southern litera- 



ture, 259. 
Specimen Days (Whitman) : 355. 
Spofford, Harriet Prescott: 251. 
Spoon River Anthology (Masters) : 427. 
Spy, The (Cooper): 124. 
Stanton, Henry T. : 340. 
Star-Spangled Banner (Key): 97, 298. 
Stedman, Edmund C. : 363. 
Stith, Willum : 30. 
Stock.\rd, Henry J. ; 304. 
Stockton, Frank R. : 372. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry: 362. 
Story of a Bad Boy (Aldrich) : 249. 
Story of Kennett, The (Taylor): 352. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher: 156. 
Strachey, William : 23. 
Stuart, Ruth McEnery : 339. 
Summer in Arcady, A (Allen): 329. 
Sunrise (Lanier) : 280. 
Surry of Eagle's Nest (Cooke) : 317. 
Swallow-Barn (Kennedy) : 315. 
Sword of Robert Lee (Ryan) : 295. 
Symphony, The (Lanier) : 279. 

Tabb, John B.; 300. 

Tailefer, Patrick : 30. 

Tales of a Traveller (Irving): 114. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn (Longfellow) : 203. 

Tarkington, Newton Booth : 397. 

Taylor, Bayard : 350. 

Teasdale, Sara: 431. 

Tenth Muse, The: i2. 

Terhune, Mrs. Mary V.: 339. 

Thanatopsis (Bryant): 13^. 

Thanet, Octave : 402. 

Thaxter, Cell\ : 250. 

Thom.\s, Edith M. ; 365. 

Thompson, John R., 295. 

Thompson, Maurice : 396. 

Thoreau, Henry D.; life, 172; personality, 

173; works, 174; literary characteristics, 

176. 
TicKNOR, Frances O. : 299. 
Timrod, Henry: life, 283; personality, 284; 

poetry, 285 ; poetic qualities, 288. 
To a Waterfowl (Bryant) : 133. 
To Have and to Hold (Johnston) : ?37. 



444 



INDEX 



Tom Sawyer, Adventures of (Clemens): 388, 

390. 
Teanscendentalism : definition of, 149; 

origin, 150; in New England, 151. 

TKOWBRrDGE, JoHN ToWNSEND ! 250. 

Tritmbull, John: 94. 

Tucker, St. George : 102. 

Twain, Mark: 386-393. 

Twice-Told Tales (Hawthorne): 184. 

Two Years Before the Mast (Dana) : 143, 249. 

Tyler, Royall: 102. 

Uncle Remus Storie.s: 323-325. 
Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe) : 156. 
Unit.\emnism : 147. 
Untermyer, Louis: 433. 

Van Dyke, Henry: 364, 373. 
Victorian Poets (Stedman) : 363. 
Views Afoot (Taylor) : 350, 352. 
Virginia Comedians, The (Cooke): 316. 
Virginian, The (Wister) : 374. 
Vision of Sir Launfal (Lowell) : 211, 
Voice of the City (Porter) : 336. 
Voice of the People, The (Glasgow) : 337. 
V. V.'sEyes (Harrison) : 338. 

Wake Robin (Burroughs) : 349. 

Walden (Thoreau): 174, 176. 

Wallace, Lew: 396. 

Ward, Artemus: 385. 

Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: 250. 

Ward, Nathaniel: 50. 

Warner, Charles Dudley: 347. 

Warren, Mercy Otis: 102. 

Washington, George: 62, 78. 

Waving of the Corn (Lanier) : 279. 

Webster, Daniel: life, 235; personality, 236; 

orations, 237. 
Week on the Concord and Merrimac 

(Thoreau): 174. 
West in Literature : 377. 



Western Writers: 377. 

Wharton, Mrs. Edith: 374. 

Whippoorwill, The (Cawein): 303. 

White, Stewart Edward: 401. 

White, William Allen : 403. 

Whitman, Walt: life, 353; personality, 354; 
poetry, 355 ; characteristics and contribu- 
tion, 360. 

WniTTAKER, Thomas: 30. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf: life, 239; per- 
sonality, 241; poetry, 242; characteristics 
and contribution, 246. 

WiDDEMER, Margaret: 432. 

Wieland (Brown): QQ. 

WiGGiN, ICate Douglas: 373. 

Wiggles WORTH, Michael: life and poetry, 
44. 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler: 410. 

Wild Honeysuckle, The (Freneau): 92. 

Wilde, Richard Henry: 298. 

WiLKiNs, Mary (Mrs. Freeman): 251. 

Wilkinson, M.\rguerite : 433. 

William and Mary College Founded: 15, 
60. 

William Wilson (Poe) : 268. 

Williams, Roger: life and works, 48-50. 

Willis, Nathaniel Parker: 141. 

Wilson, Augusta Evans : 339. 

Wilson, Robert Burns: 304. 

Wilson, Woodrow: 375. 

Winning of the West, The (Roosevelt): 375. 

Westthrop, John: life, 33; writings, 34. 

Wlrt, William: 102. 

Wister, Owen: 374. 

Wonder-Book (Hawthorne): 187. 

Wood, William: 59. 

Woodberry, George Edward: 364. 

Woodman, Spare that Tree (Morris): 143. 

Woolman, John : 88. 

Yemassee, The (Simms): 312, 313. 
Yesterdays with Authors (Fields): 250. 



